


Incinerate

by ghouluke



Series: robot au [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Sexual Situations, Corruption, Dehumanization, Demisexuality, Falling In Love, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Gore, On the Run, Robot!Luke, Robot/Human Relationships, Smut, Some Humor, Violence, brief suicide mention, hopefully will be a part two, if i can get my shit together and write, student!ashton, this is a train wreck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:05:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8424622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghouluke/pseuds/ghouluke
Summary: After his parents create an illegal humanoid robot, Ashton and his new robotic companion are forced to flee from the government, who will stop at nothing to ensure Luke is eliminated.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raleighsbecket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raleighsbecket/gifts), [waywardaussies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardaussies/gifts).



> hello and happy halloween! so this baby has been in production since around August last year. I got the inspiration about writing about robots from the game [choice of robots](https://www.choiceofgames.com/robots/), a choose your own adventure game. I recommend buying it and playing it (honestly, you'll replay it so many times because so many possibilities).
> 
> This work is dedicated to Olivia, who I think was the first person I spoke to about this AU; and Kourtney, who honestly keeps inspiring me to write because she's the bomb and he work is the bomb. Also, special mentions to Mere, Katie, and Niwi who all read through this and helped me with things. 
> 
> I'm working on a second chapter/series part, but I've been working on it for months and I just can't at the moment, so I'm posting this now. There may be more, there may not be more, but I am very proud of this as it is (maybe).
> 
> The link for the playlist for this fic can be found [here](http://ghouluke.tumblr.com/post/151578517791/lashton-robot-au-fic-mix-description-after-his). The tracklist is given there too, and I'm proud so give it a listen. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

The creation of robots was a huge thing for mankind. Many governments had poured a lot of funds into finding a perfect balance of structure, material and function for these robots, so it came as no surprise when they were overjoyed with their outcomes.

Eventually, robots capable of being used in the military were made, the final aim of their creators. They wanted to have reliable artificial intelligence that could follow orders, and kill, kill, kill. 

These robots were on basic settings: they didn't have humanlike features, which separated them from society; they were incapable of empathy, thinking, feeling, anything that would link them to humans. All they knew was to listen to orders and not to rebel.

These strict settings weren't always the case; a few robots were created with the capability of free will and to be able to learn empathy. The testing of these went on for a while, but was stopped after a robot turned on its scientists and killed many. This led to a law being put in place and enforced throughout the world: robots were only allowed for military purposes and could only be programmed in a single set way. Anyone who went against these laws would be incarcerated and their robots destroyed immediately.

The Irwins, however, ignored this rule. They believed it had been put in place just for fear, and just because one robot went rogue, that didn't mean any other one would.

Both of the Irwins were scientists, having a degree in robotics, which was how they met; Anne-Marie and Mark were smitten with each other from the day they met in college.

After they got married not long after they graduated, they ended up having three children. Ashton, their oldest child, was nineteen when they started their project. Their other children, Harry and Lauren, were both much younger. 

The project the two, and a small group of select scientists they knew they could trust, set out to complete was to create the most humanlike robot they could. By this, they wanted the robot to have human features, to be able to blend in with a crowd and not seem out of place; to be capable of emotion, empathy and to understand the world in their own terms, not to just be used as a weapon in war; to be seen as someone who is equal to humans and is just as capable.

The group worked hard to create this humanoid, having their own lab in a warehouse on the outskirts of Sydney, trying not to get caught by the authorities by ensuring they had a cover-up business too. 

Ashton, the Irwins' son, often visited the lab to see the progress. He, himself, was fondly into robotics, therefore following in his parents footsteps at college. He wanted to help with the creation of the robot if they still weren't done by the time he graduated.

The robot took two years to make, but eventually it was done, perfected to the Irwins and their team's preferences.

His name was Luke and he was to shape the future.

\--

Being invited to the warehouse this early in the morning made Ashton fairly excited. He knew his parents had probably made great progress with their robot and he couldn’t wait to see it.

The Irwins had kept Ashton away for a good couple of months, wanting the final product to be a surprise to the man, which had taken a lot of doing; Ashton’s keen interest in robotics and the creation of the robot was something that was hard to contain.

Ashton was following curiously behind his father, as he led him towards the room where they had been creating the robot; his mother was already there.

His father turned to him on the way there. “You’re really going to love him, Ash.”

“Him?”

“Yeah, we decided on a male robot.”

The excitement began to grow in Ashton more at that. Hearing the robot (he didn’t have his name yet) be referred to by human pronouns made this all feel so much more real, and that the robot was going to be treated as an equal with humans. He truly had this desire to change the world and allow everyone to not fear robots.

As they got closer to the room, Ashton’s heart started beating faster, more rapidly. He’d been waiting for this moment for years. Even before his parents had plans to make a robot themselves, he’d always dreamed that one day he’d be able to meet a robot who was humanlike and befriend them.

The door opened to the room, and Ashton’s hazel eyes shot open wide. The room was almost empty; all the scientists were milling around in other places. All that was left was Ashton’s mother and the robot.

Both of them turned their heads to look at Ashton and his father as they entered and _fuck_. When Ashton locked eyes with the robot, he swore that he looked no different from any human. His eyes were a stark blue, and oh, was he tall.

When Ashton looked further, he noticed scruff on his chin and jaw line and the finer details that made someone look more humanlike: other body hair, muscle outline, freckles, and God, all the skin crevices and lines.

He was surely the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Anne-Marie began to call out to Ashton before he was even halfway to her. "Ash! You're here! I have someone I want you to meet."

Ashton finished closing the distance between him and possibly the most anticipated moment of his life.

"Ash, I'd like you to meet Luke." Anne pointed to the robot, to  _Luke_. "Luke, this is my eldest son, Ashton. I was telling you about him earlier."

Luke threw him a crooked smile and Ashton awkwardly held his hand out towards him, thinking it was probably best to meet in an official way. (And maybe he wanted to feel what Luke's skin felt like, how  _real_  it felt.)

The confusion on Luke's face was prominent; clearly, he didn't understand Ashton's gesture yet. After a few seconds, however, he seemed to process it, grasping Ashton's hand in his and shaking.

If Ashton hadn't known Luke was a robot, from the touch of his hand, there would be no indication that he wasn't touching anything other than a human. His skin was rough, slightly calloused, but it was oh so  _human_.

"It is very lovely to meet you, Ashton. Your mother told me a lot of things about you."

The hazel eyed man nearly died at the sound of Luke's voice. The clarity within it was astounding and he had an Australian accent to rival his own. The only thing slightly abnormal about his speech was that he spoke quite slowly and in mostly formal terms; he probably didn't know any slang or modern day terms.

"You too, uh, Luke." Ashton paused, just taking a moment to process. "Wow, this is... I'm... Fuck, this is probably the best day ever."

Both Ashton's parents laughed and Luke joined in with them, clearly picking up on social cues as he went. Ashton thought Luke had a nice laugh.

Before anyone could say anymore, one of the Irwins' fellow scientists, who'd helped with creating Luke, came running into the main room. "Anne, Mark, the military are here! Some bastard must have tipped them off about Luke, probably a mole in the team this whole time! They have a whole SWAT team and robots and everything. The others are trying to hold them off, but they're getting closer. You need to get Luke out of here now!" The man ran off as soon as he'd finished his speech, clearly going to help the other scientists.

As if on cue, the warehouse and lab's alarm system started beeping and ringing, confirming that what the scientist had said was true.

Ashton felt panic flare up within him. The government were often ruthless when it came to things like this, and although the said punishment for this crime was just incarceration, Ashton knew from his parents' old friends that people were often killed. Their robots killed too. Ashton wouldn't let that happen to something - someone - as beautiful as Luke.

Anne settled herself in front of her son, speaking to him in a soft, but final, tone. "Ashton, you need to get out of here with Luke, now."

"We  _all_  need to go. You must have a back exit, right?" Ashton glanced around, looking for one.

Mark was opening a hidden exit, while Ashton talked to his mum. Luke was standing just off to the side, looking a bit confused.

"Ash, I need you to look after Luke. Teach him everything about humanity. Honey, you're the best person he could ever learn from." Anne's eyes clouded over and Ashton's were beginning to too.

"Mum! What are you and Dad going to do? We can all go! Let's all go now!" 

His mother pulled him into a hug, holding onto him tightly. "I'm sorry, baby. We need to stay here and make sure you and Luke have time to escape. We need to face this like the rest of our team have."

Out of the corner of his eye, Ashton could now see his father whispering things to Luke, the man (Ashton didn't know how old he was supposed to appear, but that scruff made him look like a man) nodding along to what was being said.

Anne was talking again before Ashton could get another word in. "Go find Harry and Lauren and tell them you’re alright. Then I need you to keep yourself and Luke safe, okay? Don't let him fall into the wrong hands. I love you, sweetheart."

Ashton was then pushed away from her and back into Luke, who caught Ashton, and began to lead him towards the exit.

"No, no! I'm not going! I'm not going without you!" Ashton struggled against Luke (fuck whatever bullshit his muscles are made of) who wasn't giving him any leeway. 

It was his dad that spoke this time, his face looking defeated and Ashton had never seen him like that. "It's alright, Ash. We love you. Don't be scared." 

There was a banging at the door Ashton had come through earlier, and Luke tugged him harder towards the exit. Ashton felt his fight leave him slightly and decided to follow Luke out of the exit, shutting it mostly behind them. 

As they moved away from the door, Ashton finally heard the other door break in, followed by gunshot after gunshot after gunshot. He screamed out, breaking out of Luke's grip and dashing back towards the secret exit. He only caught a glimpse inside before Luke dragged him back and all he could see was blood and his parents lying on the ground.

His body failed him and he collapsed to his knees, his head tightly pressed into his hands. "No, no, no, no, oh God no, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" 

"Ashton, I am afraid we need to leave." 

"Fuck you!" Ashton began screaming at Luke, pounding at his chest, as the man began to pull him away, running swiftly to gain distance.

After yelling at Luke for a few more seconds, Ashton just left his body flop a bit, sobs escaping his lips as he leaned against Luke. "They're gone... Oh God, no."

\--

Ashton was lucky that he’d parked his car half a mile away from the lab, leaving him and Luke a means to get away from there as fast as possible, and also not get seen by the military.

There were still tears falling from Ashton’s eyes as he drove, even though Luke insisted he was programmed to be able to and wanted to do it himself.

Harry and Lauren were at Ashton’s grandparents’ house as far as he knew, so that was where he and Luke were heading, hoping that the military wouldn’t zoom in on the rest of the family’s whereabouts. The house they lived in, however, was fairly secure and off the grid; Ashton’s parents had taken precaution with it and ensured that there’d be at least one safe place to hide out. Luke couldn’t stay there though, for fear that the military would be able to find him through frequencies.

Ashton’s sniffling provoked words from Luke. “You should stop crying, Ashton. You may crash the car.”

At that point, as much as Ashton was in awe of Luke even being there, he still wanted to punch that asshole in the face. Ever since they’d made it to the car, he’d been nonstop saying stupid shit without any concern for how Ashton felt. That’d be his lack of empathy so far.

Briefly turning to Luke, who was sitting stiff in the passenger seat, Ashton rolled his tear filled eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Your tears could be for a variety of reasons, according to what I have just searched for. Are you feeling sad? Angry? How about-“

“For fuck’s sake, Luke! Shut the hell up! I’m fucking upset! You can’t be saying shit like that. You’re supposed to be respectful of what I’m feeling right now. If I want to talk I will, okay? Just be quiet.”

Thankfully, Luke was quiet beside him after Ashton had yelled at him. God, Ashton couldn’t wait for him to learn more about humanity. He damn right needed it. The hazel eyed man knew he shouldn’t be too hard on Luke really, but fuck, he’d pretty much just watched his parents _die_ right in front of him, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He should’ve tried harder, should’ve continued to refuse to leave without them. Maybe then they’d be here with him now: _alive_. They’d get to teach Luke the way they wanted to, and show him the world themselves. Their humanity was everything beyond Ashton’s. They wouldn’t be here right now yelling at the one creation in the world that meant everything. Ashton was a fucking idiot. Luke didn’t deserve him as a ‘mentor.’ His mum was wrong; Ashton wasn’t the best person Luke could learn from. Anyone was better than Ashton.

In his head, Ashton silently apologised to Luke, too afraid to say anymore aloud for fear that he would break.

The best day ever soon became the worst.

\--

“Ok, Luke, try not to be too weird, please. We’re just going to go in and explain the situation and head out, okay?”

The pair had just arrived at Ashton’s grandparents’ house and Ashton was kind of scared to enter. He really didn’t want to be the one to explain everything that had happened, but he knew he had to. Someone had to. Like hell was he leaving that to Luke. It was something he had to do.

Luke twisted his head to the side like a curious dog, furrowing his eyebrows at Ashton. “Are we not staying? Where are we going to go?”

“We can’t stay. You know why. You’re a robot, Luke. You can be tracked, even if it will be slow, since I’m sure my parents took precautions. The government won’t stop until they find you and fucking _destroy_ you, so we have to leave. We have to go and keep moving. We can’t put anyone else in danger.”

As Ashton began to open his car door, Luke’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder, gripping it rather uncomfortably, but Ashton couldn’t bring himself to object. After all, he’d been pretty rude to Luke earlier; this was the least he could do.

“What about you? I do not want you in danger, Ashton. That is impractical.”

Now deciding to prise off Luke’s hand, Ashton got out of the car and turned to Luke, before he shut it. “You’re stuck with me. It was my parents’ last wish that I take care of you, so that’s what I’m doing. Now, come on, follow me.”

It took a while for the pair to actually make it to the door of the house, after Luke tripped and fell over his legs when he got out of the car. (“It seems I have not grasped how to use my leg mechanics that well yet, Ashton.”)

After knocking on the door, Ashton’s gran appeared, hastily ushering the pair inside without much question; she was probably feeling cautious all the time, despite being off the radar.

Once they were inside, Ashton was engulfed in a hug from his gran and his grandpa swiftly followed. He’d honestly missed them a lot; he rarely got to see them due to his stint at university.

 “Hello, Ash, dear. What’s going on?” His gran looked rather worried, and didn’t even acknowledge Luke stood just behind Ashton. “I thought your parents were showing you the robot today, shouldn’t you be there?”

“That’s why I’m here, Gran. Things, God, things didn’t go too well.” Ashton gulped feeling the tears well up in his eyes again.

His grandpa clearly noticed his distress and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, take your time.” He then seemed to notice Luke. “And who’s this?”

Moving out of the way so that he was beside Luke instead of slightly in front of him, the hazel eyed man tried to gather his thoughts. “Well, first, uh, this is Luke. He’s, uh, the robot Mum and Dad made.” His grandparents’ eyes widened at that. “Someone sold them out to the military and fuck, they turned up and Mum and Dad sent me out with Luke, and fuck! They’re dead! They’re dead… Oh, God, they’re dead.”

His hands were over his face in a matter of seconds as he began sobbing into them again. He felt like someone had cut him open and pulled out anything that would make him hurt.

There was a hand on his back: _Luke_. The blond was patting it awkwardly, clearly taking his cue from Ashton’s grandparents, who were clearly as distraught as Ashton was.

Sniffing, Ashton knew there were others who needed to know this news. “C-can you tell Harry and Lauren, please? I don’t think I can do that. I can’t. I know it’s a lot to ask of you-“

Luke cut him off. “I can do it. It will bring me no trouble at all.”

Ashton couldn’t help the sarcastic, spiteful tone that arose. “Aha, yes, Luke. Why not send the single reason that my parents are dead to tell their children that they’re gone?”

“Ashton.” His grandpa scolded him. “It’s hardly Luke’s fault. Stop it. It’s fine. We can tell them.”

The twenty-one year old looked away in shame. “Are Harry and Lauren here? I want to say goodbye before Luke and I leave.”

His grandparents informed him that they were in the garden, so that’s where Ashton headed, Luke following behind him like a lost sheep.

When they stepped outside, they were greeted with laughter from Ashton’s siblings, as they were passing a tennis ball around. Ashton was glad someone could have some happiness for the time being; God, he couldn’t bear to be there when they found out about their parents.

The two children looked up, probably hearing Ashton walk onto the patio, and their eyes lit up. The golden haired man was soon engulfed by the pair’s arms around his waist. He bent down a bit, hugging them back tightly and trying not to start crying again.

“Hey, Ash! How’s university been for you? We haven’t seen you in a few weeks!” They had all pulled apart from their hug when Lauren asked this.

Ashton forced a smile, despite being broken inside from the incident with his parents and also now of the prospect of leaving everything behind to stick with Luke. “It’s been really good. You know how much I love learning about robots.”

This seemed to grasp Luke’s attention; he was still stood beside Ashton and seemed to have gone unnoticed by the younger Irwins until this point. “That is good to know, Ashton.”

It was inevitable at this point that everyone’s attention was brought to Luke, and Harry and Lauren began looking between him and Ashton, interested looks on their faces.

Ashton knew he had to explain now; they knew their parents were making a robot, so they deserved to meet Luke before they have to leave. “This is Luke, guys.”

Harry greeted Luke excitedly, while Lauren turned to Ashton. “Hmm, have you finally got yourself a boyfriend?”

God, now Ashton was blushing. It was no secret to his family that he was bisexual, but had a stronger preference towards men. He honestly hadn’t had a partner in a while, but for Lauren to think it was _Luke_ …

Everyone was looking at him now, Harry and Lauren with curiosity and Luke confusedly. “No, no, no. T-This is, uh, the robot Mum and Dad made.”

His siblings’ eyes widened and they pivoted their eyes back to Luke, who waved rather stiffly. “Hello, my name is Luke. Your parents told me about you two.”

While the two were focused on Luke in awe, Ashton quickly decided that he needed to tell them he and Luke were leaving before any questions about their parents arose; he couldn’t be dealing with that. “We need to leave now, guys, okay? I just came to say goodbye. Luke and I can’t stay here.”

Lauren clearly didn’t agree. “What? Ashton, what are you talking about? Why can’t you stay?”

“You know Luke’s illegal. He’s a robot. He has a system that can be tracked, and if we stay here, nobody is safe. I’m keeping you all safe. I’m going to stay with Luke.” Ashton could see his siblings about to protest again, so he quickly pulled them both into a hug. “Look, it’s going to be fine. Just stay here with Gran and Grandpa. I’ll find out some way we can keep in contact. I love you both.”

After a quick goodbye, Ashton led Luke back inside, and they regrouped with his grandparents. Luke then explained that he had a communication link set up already, so sorted that out with the house’s computer. However, it was for infrequent contact, as they couldn’t be sure on how secure the connection was.

Once outside of the house, Ashton knew exactly where they needed to head next. “Alright, Luke, it’s time to go to my house, as long as the military aren’t yet. I have a few things we’re gunna need for this road trip of ours.”

\--

“Don’t touch anything, okay? I spent ages tidying this place the other day.”

Ashton barely saw Luke nod in response, as he moved past him inside the house. Luckily for them, it seemed that no military had arrived here yet, but Ashton knew they’d get here at some point; they were bound to check for more robotics or anyone else involved.

The sound of the door shutting reminded him of Luke’s presence and wow, there was a robot in his house. The hazel eyed man shook his head; definitely not the time.

Deciding speed was the best way to go about this, and more was better, Ashton ran up to his room, making it there far ahead of Luke, who seemed to get stuck on the stairs if the banging noises were anything to go by.

Grabbing the largest backpack he could find in his wardrobe, the twenty-one year old shovelled various items of clothing into it to start with, making sure he had at least a couple changes of clothes. Luke eventually made it to his room, while Ashton was just finishing adding clothing.

“Those stairs were not very easy to navigate. I do not think my legs are quite stable enough.” Luke was glancing down at his denim covered legs and frowning, and the display of emotion took Ashton aback, and it was beautiful. (Wow, he never thought he’d call someone beautiful just for being sad and frowning.)

Ashton let out a giggle involuntarily, and abruptly stopped himself when he realised. “Well, you’ll get used to it.”

After that interaction, Ashton got back to gathering stuff he needed: toiletries, money, his laptop, his lucky drumsticks (he couldn’t believe he had to leave his drum kit behind). He decided to gather food on their way out, but there was one more thing he needed.

He told Luke to stay put in his room for the time being and ran straight to his parents’ room. Luckily, they didn’t have any traces of their work at home that he’d need to get rid of; they refused to bring stuff home from the warehouse and they had a remote erasing system for their computers, just in case.

Pulling out a hidden compartment at the back of their bedside table, Ashton grabbed the handgun and the spare magazine that rested there. Now, Ashton knew how to fire a gun; he’d taken some classes at a firing range when he was eighteen with some of his friends. His parents hadn’t agreed with that; they were pretty much full blown pacifists. This gun was only here in case of major emergencies, and well, this definitely was one.

Luke shouting from the other room brought him out of his remembrance. “Ashton! There are people outside!”

“Fuck! Luke, we need to leave now!”

Ashton made it back into his room and risked a quick look out of the window. There were about three SWAT vans outside with mixed passengers of humans and robots. Everyone was nearly at the front door now with their battering ram.

“Shit, shit, shit. This isn’t good, Luke.” A bang was heard, signalling the door beginning to be hit. “Fuck, we’re screwed.”

An idea suddenly came to Ashton’s mind in his panic, and he pulled out his laptop and turned it on. It loaded up fairly quickly, due to some modifications on Ashton’s part, but the front door broke in as it happened.

Ashton took a sharp breath as he began typing in one of his programs, thanking any higher power for his coding and hacking skills, along with his robotic interest. 

When he glanced up briefly to check on Luke, he noticed the man was standing protectively in front of him near the doorway, facing towards the opening. That caused his eyebrows to furrow.

“Ok, ok, I’m sending out a disabling frequency to all the robots now. I’m really hoping you’re programmed differently or this isn’t going to go well for you either. As soon as I set this off, Luke, we’re running downstairs and out of the backdoor. I will lead the way since you-“

Luke cut him off. “No, Ashton, I will go first to check for danger. I know where to go. It’s stored in my memory.”

“If you insist…” Ashton pressed enter on the keyboard and a high pitched ringing sound was heard from downstairs and outside. Luckily, only robots had been sent into the house so far to check, so they’d be able to pass. “Go now!”

After shoving his laptop into his open backpack, Ashton ran after Luke down the stairs. The hallway was full of robots, and Luke went about moving them to pass, seemingly apologising as he went. Ashton assumed he must feel a connection due to them being fellow robots.

There was a shout outside the house and suddenly people were beginning to rush down towards it. Ashton swore when he noticed, and Luke stopped at the end of the hallway before the backdoor to let Ashton go in front. 

"Okay, Luke, we can't get the car now, so we're gunna just run. There's a wood near. We'll go that way." Ashton whispered this, as they unlocked the backdoor.

"I will follow close behind you."

Shouts were getting louder, so the pair hastily headed off outside, leaving the house in their wake.

\--

After walking for what felt like forever, Ashton had had just about enough of it. They’d made it a few towns over after catching a train just to get far enough away for the night. To be fair, Ashton didn’t want to leave that far anyway, at least not yet; he and Luke could just keep moving around Sydney, as, after all, it was a big place.

Just as the sun began setting, the twenty-one year old dragged his companion to the nearest hotel and booked them a room for the night. (“Luke, you better shut up while I sort this, okay?” “I look human. I am not going to be anything out of place.”)

Once in their room, Ashton just put his bag on the floor, before flopping down onto one of the beds and groaning. His feet hurt a lot and he’d had too much adrenaline in his body. Plus, this day was officially the shittest one he’d ever had.

When he looked back up again, Luke was still awkwardly standing by the door to the room, looking a bit unsure of what to do.

“Luke, you can sit on the bed if you want. It’s yours for the night.” Ashton stood up. “There’s a TV over there you can put on and watch too. I’m going to shower though, so just stay out of the bathroom. I won’t be too long.”

Luke nodded at Ashton’s speech. “Okay. Thank you, Ashton. I am still getting used to this. I only know the basics. Human behaviour is fairly foreign to me.”

The hazel eyed man couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t worry.” He paused. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry about earlier. I snapped at you a fucking lot and I didn’t mean it. I just… it’s been rough today. I mean my parents are…”

The word “dead” was left unspoken in the air, and Ashton wasn’t even sure if Luke could pick up on his social cues or not (he hoped not, because he felt like crying again. It was his fault.).

Laughing to try and ease his utter guilt, he spoke again. “Anyway, I’m going to shower. You enjoy your time out here. Do whatever you like. Just don’t touch my things.”

Not even bothering to wait for Luke to reply, Ashton quickly entered the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He couldn’t help it when his back slid down the door and he brought his knees up to his chest.

With his head now in his hands, the hazel eyed man tried to hold back the oncoming tears. His parents would want him to be strong. His father’s words flashed back into his mind and that helped him get himself together, so he pulled himself up off of the floor and beelined straight for the shower after undressing. (The water from the shower may have washed away the dirt and grime from his skin, but it did nothing to eradicate the guilt that was still eating at him.)

Once he was washed and dried, Ashton realised he’d forgotten to bring clean clothing into the bathroom with him. Deciding not to fret about it, he wrapped a towel around his waist, carrying his old clothing under his arm, and just decided to brave the main room area, making sure to alert Luke first.

“Luke?” Ashton received a response, so he continued. “Can you, uh, close your eyes or something for a minute? I just need to get changed.”

After Luke told him his eyes were closed, Ashton left the safety of the bathroom and headed over towards his bed. Luke’s eyes were firmly shut when he passed and he was sitting stiffly at the end of his bed. His nose was scrunched up a bit, due to the closure of his eyes. That made the older man stop just in front of Luke for a moment to admire him; it was really hard to believe he wasn’t human.

“Okay, that’s a minute gone.”

Suddenly, Luke’s eyes were wide open and looking right at Ashton, who was frozen a few metres away, covered up by just a towel around his waist.

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed. “Oh, Ashton, you have not put clothes on yet.”

Ashton’s cheeks were blazing hot at this point. “F-fuck, Luke! When I said a minute, I didn’t mean literally! Close your fucking eyes. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”

As soon as Luke’s eyes were shut again, Ashton ran over to his bed, and was chucking things out rapidly, so he could shove clothes on. God, how could he let Luke see him like _that_? He tried to tell himself it wasn’t a big deal, but his insecurities were still nagging away at him.

“O-okay, you can open your eyes now.”

Thankfully, that awkward moment soon passed after Ashton decided to browse the web on his laptop. He wasn’t worried about being tracked through this use, due to the increased security he had online and on his laptop; another advantage of knowing how to hack and engineer.

Silence was present in the room, however, and Ashton was finding it unbearable. Luke hadn’t moved since they’d gotten here; he was still sat at the end of his bed.

“Hey, Luke?” Ashton waited for the man to turn his way. “Why don’t we have a chat? You know, we’re gunna be stuck with each other for a while, so why don’t we get to know each other? You must have interests and stuff ingrained in you, or you must’ve searched for things in that hefty brain of yours.”

“Of course. What do you want to know?”

Lots of questions started flooding into Ashton’s mind and he asked a lot of them without a moment’s hesitation, listening to Luke’s response, and then giving his own answer too. They were just basic questions, such as if Luke had a favourite animal (he was surprised when Luke told him he was fond of penguins; it was Ashton’s mother’s favourite animal).

He was fascinated to learn about Luke’s lack of need for eating, sleeping and other similar activities. There was, however, no denying the sadness in his voice when he spoke of this, knowing it was one thing that separated him from being human. Luke’s display of emotion felt bittersweet to Ashton though.

After chatting for a while, Ashton couldn’t help but notice the amount in common Luke had with Ashton himself. More evidence was in the similarity to how they dressed (Luke was wearing black skinny jeans paired with a Fall Out Boy tee, one of Ashton’s favourite bands.). It was uncanny the likes they shared. He decided to voice this to the blond.

“Oh, yes. Your parents programmed me to be a little similar to you, since you are their son. They felt inspired by you.”

Fuck, and if that didn’t make Ashton tear up…

The twenty-one year old looked down at his feet and really just wanted to have his parents here or his siblings so they could comfort him and cuddle him, telling him it’s going to get better, like they always did.

He looked to Luke, hoping the blue eyed man would give him some form of comfort. He’d take anything from a few words, to physical touch. However, Luke remained still, blinking over at his companion from where he now sat at the top of his bed; he’d gotten more relaxed throughout their conversation.

Ashton decided to prompt him, hoping some empathy could be learnt from this encounter (and well, some fucking comfort for himself). “Uh, Luke, this is the part where you offer me so comforting words, since I’m upset.”

Luke stopped and appeared to be thinking for a second. “Beds and pillows. Those are comforting, right?”

In response, Ashton outright groaned, burying his face in his pillow (it wasn’t comforting him). “Fucking hell, Luke. Those are more comfortable to like sit on. Not very good with helping me feel better though.”

“Oh. I am sorry, Ashton. I will research into the topic fully, along with a lot more.”

Rolling his eyes, although Luke couldn’t see, Ashton just wished Luke’s empathy would grow faster.

\--

The next week passed like a blur to Ashton. He and Luke had been living in and out of various different hotels, leaving if it looked like people were onto them; they could never tell if someone was an officer in disguise, although Luke tried his best with some scanning system he had going for him. He refused to use that often though (“It separates me, Ashton.”).

Ashton felt like he’d taught Luke a lot more about empathy and humanity. Though they kept to themselves on a few occasions, due to Ashton’s generally low mood, he’d managed to slip in a few lessons on comfort and understanding. Luke had stayed true to his research and now tried to pick up Ashton’s sadness cues without being prompted.

Another thing that Ashton found was that Luke had picked up his slang and swearing. His speech was still more articulated, stiff and more formal than the average person, but the occasional “fuck” for emphasis worked its way in there.

Although that may have changed, many other things hadn’t; Luke still tripped over his long legs, especially when faced with stairs, although it was happening much less frequently, and awkwardly stared and acted weird around Ashton.

That happened to be the case for Ashton at the moment.

The pair of them were staying at a hotel a few miles out of Sydney and had been for the past day or two. Ashton decided that two days at the same place should be fine, after Luke assured him his system works heavily to block anyone trying to trace them, leaving a longer gap than usual.

After showing Luke the wonders of Spongebob Squarepants on the TV (yes, Ashton was a mature twenty-one year old man), Ashton had ended up heading out to the hotel’s gardens for some fresh air. Luke had insisted he came along too, following Ashton down the stairs, swearing a little as he went.

They’d found a table to sit down at, and Ashton had found Luke pretty much staring unblinking at him. He sighed and looked away; he’d gotten used to that by now.

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed, when Ashton glanced back to him. “Ashton? Why do you watch programmes about yellow sponges that live in the ocean? That doesn’t seem right to me.”

A long conversation about the ins and outs of Spongebob therefore transgressed and Ashton couldn’t believe he actually had to do that.

By the time they’d started up a new topic, the garden was now empty, although it had been buzzing with people when they entered. It was also around dinner time, so Ashton would have expected many people out here eating some food with their friends and family. He stopped replying to Luke’s questions.

Across from him, Luke was nattering on about another programme Ashton had shown him the other day and how much he loved it, but Ashton cut him off. “This is really eerie, Luke. Why isn’t anyone out here?”

Suddenly, the blond turned serious and began glancing around the garden, looking for something. “I agree. Maybe we should go. Let me look around first. Do you have your gun?”

Ashton shook his head. “I thought there’d be no need.”

Just as Luke was about to look around, Ashton heard a loud yell and around six officers came out from the bushes in front of them, guns pointed their way. There were no robots present this time, and Ashton couldn’t help but smirk a little despite his current fear. Clearly, they had been put off that after his trick last time.

The woman in the middle glanced towards them; she was clearly the captain of the team. “You’re both under arrest and if you resist, well, you’re going to die.”

In fear, Ashton stood up out of his chair and raised his hands. Fuck, they were so screwed, so, so, so screwed. If only he’d brought his gun…

In a second, Luke was stood in front of him, in between him and the military group. Ashton’s arms dropped a bit in shock, looking at Luke’s tense body language and his curled fists at his side.

“No, you’re not taking _him_ anywhere.” Luke’s voice was venomous when it left his lips. God, it sounded so foreign to Ashton. It didn’t feel like Luke at all.

The captain laughed, the shrill sound leading her subordinates to join in too. “Oh? That’s funny. Real cute, robot. You can fake this humanity all you like, but at heart, you’re not human. You can’t be.”

That angered Ashton so much. Luke had more humanity than all of those people put together. Yeah, there was a lot he still needed to learn, but God, did he try. He tried his hardest and he learned and he researched. He was _pure_.

The twenty-one year old got no chance to voice this, as Luke practically vibrated with anger in front of him (wait… was he actually vibrating?). “Fuck off. You’re not welcome here.”

In shock, Ashton yelped when Luke pushed him to the side, knocking a table over for him to hide behind. He just caught the moment when Luke grabbed his left wrist, pushing on his palm so his hand fell back. His wrist opened up and fuck, was that a _gun_?!

Ashton’s suspicions were confirmed when Luke began carefully firing at the people across from them. Ashton hid then, as the opposition began firing too and everything was so loud.

There was a gap in the table though, where he was able to peer and watch the scene unfold. Luke was advancing at the team, who were making no moves to run or break line. They were firing at him, but it had no effect. Ashton winced when a bullet collided with Luke’s chest.

Everyone was dying. Despite their armour, Luke seemed to be able to calculate their weak spots, firing there and managing to kill them instantly, until there was one team member left; he ran out of ammo. Ashton saw the moment he knew he was screwed. He stopped, and begged for his life, but Luke didn’t even hesitate. He shot him straight in a gap in his bulletproof vest.

Ashton couldn’t breathe. He slowly rose to his feet, stepping out from behind the table. That wasn’t Luke. That couldn’t be Luke. But it was, and the blond turned to him, eyes still blank and Ashton could see no emotion there. There were about three bullet holes in his chest, positions that would’ve killed anyone in that circumstance, ones that killed those dead on the floor now.

The hazel eyed man couldn’t help it when his eyes were drawn to the six bodies on the floor, blood pooled around them. He looked to the captain that was talking shit only minutes ago to see her crumpled up on her back, blood oozing out of her neck.

When Ashton’s eyes flickered to the last man, the one Luke had shot without faltering, he leant forward and vomited violently over the grass. He was hacking and spluttering up all the contents of his stomach, and tears pooled at the corners of his eyes.

Once he’d wiped away both his tears and bile, he glanced over at Luke, who was watching him, while simultaneously putting his hand back the way it was before, concealing the gun that was there. That reminded Ashton of Luke’s robot origins and frankly he was now scared as fuck.

Luke stepped towards him, but Ashton stepped back, curling into himself a bit more. God, he didn’t know what to do. He knew Luke had protected him, but how could he not be affected by _that_? He’d just murdered people without a second thought.

Ashton sniffled, moving his eyes from Luke. “We-we need to go. Get our bags and leave here. I’m sure they’ll, uh, have back up coming soon.”

Once he was done talking, Ashton headed back towards the hotel, carefully walking around the bodies. When he sneaked a look at Luke to ensure he was following, he couldn’t deny the sadness he saw in his eyes, as Ashton avoided his outstretched hand, clearly in an attempt to comfort him.

“Come on.”

\--

For the next week or so, Ashton couldn’t help but have his guard up around Luke. After the situation in the hotel garden, he couldn’t eradicate the image of Luke shooting those people and their blood smeared on the grass. It just scared him.

He knew he shouldn’t be too hard on Luke, as, after all, he saved him, and the crew that came to pick them up likely played a part in the murder of his parents, but it was the fact that Luke had no regret, and showed no ounce of humanity in that moment that scared him. He couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Luke somehow ended up like that all the time.

Conversations were still being had throughout their travels and stops; Luke still had many questions about humanity. They kept to themselves mostly though. Luke would be researching things inside his head, or watching a show Ashton had introduced him to at some point, while the older man used his laptop looking up whatever he could on robotics and the sector of the military that were responsible for all the shit that had happened to him and his family.

Luckily, they hadn’t run into any officers since the last time, which frankly made their lives much easier. Ashton went everywhere with his gun now though; he wouldn’t risk anything happening again.

Now cooped up in a cheap motel, Ashton was standing in the bathroom by the mirror, a pair of scissors held in his right hand. He looked at his reflection and flicked his eyes over his freshly shaved jaw; he’d done it on a low setting, as he liked having some stubble there. He wasn’t content with everything however.

Before he had upped and left with Luke, Ashton had been meaning to get a haircut. His hair was just grazing his shoulders and although he liked having long hair, it was just too long for him now. So, he’d decided to take things into his own hands and cut it off.

Cautiously, he brought the scissors up to the end of his wet hair and began cutting an inch or two off all the way around. He was praying that he’d be able to do all this without a hitch.

Once he was done, Ashton knew he’d have to wait for his hair to dry before he could see the finished product, but he’d cut it just below his ears, pretty much in line with the end of his jaw.

Before he could do anything else though, Luke’s voice was yelling from the other room. “Ashton! Your grandparents are calling on the line! Grab your laptop!”

It didn’t take Ashton long to do that, and Luke moved the connection from his head to Ashton’s computer. The twenty-one year old smiled at the sight of both his grandparents sitting at the screen.

Beaming, Ashton waved. “Hi, Gran and Grandpa! How is everything?”

He didn’t get the enthusiastic response he was looking for, however, when his grandpa began to speak. “Things aren’t good. We wouldn’t have contacted you both unless we needed your help. To put things straight, the government found us. Well, they haven’t found the home, but they found Harry and Lauren at school. They took them somewhere about half an hour ago and we don’t know what to do.”

Luke was the first to react to the news, as Ashton was frozen. “We should be able to do something.”

Snapping out of his bubble of sadness, Ashton knew now was the time for him to step up. He had to so that he could save his siblings. He wasn’t going to let this be another scenario where people died, not like his parents.

“Hey, don’t worry. Luke and I have got this. We’ll go find Harry and Lauren and bring them back to the house. Just give us a few hours and we’ll get things done.”

His grandparents sighed with relief; clearly they were torn up about it. His gran acknowledged him. “Okay, thanks. Don’t get yourselves into any trouble though. Stay safe.”

Luke mentioned that they had to break connection before it was possibly traceable, so the elderly couple wished the other two good luck, before the connection was severed.

When they were gone, Ashton let himself take a few deep breaths to try and gather his thoughts and get himself ready. He knew things were probably going to be dangerous, but Harry and Lauren were the ones stuck out there somewhere and he had to find them.

“Ashton, I know where your siblings are.”

Surprised, the hazel eyed man turned to Luke, who was looking intently at him. Ashton’s laptop then went onto a new screen (Luke had clearly wirelessly accessed it again) and it was showing a bird’s eye view of a building.

“I searched military bases in the area that are used for holding and interrogation, and found a few. This one had a vehicle enter it about fifteen minutes ago according to their check in lists on the system, and if we look into that further…” Luke moved the page along and opened up the detailed picture of the check in. “There we go. Harry and Lauren Irwin placed into holding.”

Ashton was in awe. “Fuck, Luke, that was fast. I’m impressed.”

A tentative smile appeared on Luke’s face and he seemed to be rather shy. It was probably due to Ashton’s approval, and the fact he hadn’t spoken to Luke like that before. “Thank you, Ashton. Being a robot does help me a lot sometimes.”

Images of blood suddenly plagued Ashton’s mind at Luke’s speech and he shook his head to get rid of them. After all, Luke’s gun arm could come in handy for this little mission of theirs.

“So, what sort of security are we talking? What’s it going to take to get us in and out?”

Luke froze for a second (Ashton had learnt that he often went completely still when researching). “I am sure we can bypass with your laptop and guns too.”

Nodding, Ashton grabbed all the stuff he needed to head out with, before making his way to the door. He turned to Luke who was yet to react and was looking at him with a tilted head, a bit like a dog. “Well, let’s fucking go then!”

Finally, the blond stood up, walking past Ashton out of the door. The older followed behind him, and the two left the motel prepared for the shit that they were about to go through.

\--

“Fucking hell, Luke. Can you go a little faster?”

The two companions were currently driving to the facility in a car they’d stolen from around the corner of the motel. It was an old Ford with only three doors, but that didn’t matter, as they just needed some form of vehicle to get to their destination.

After apologising, Luke put his foot down on the accelerator a bit more, and Ashton breathed a sigh of relief. They were only a few minutes out now; they planned to park around the corner, so they could still have their getaway vehicle.

Once they’d arrived, Ashton reached into the backseat to grab his bag, and pulled out his laptop and his gun. Luke pulled down his wrist, seemingly to check his gun too.

The hazel eyed man couldn’t help but be curious. “Uh, what’s up with that gun anyway?”

Luke stopped what he was doing and looked to Ashton, putting his wrist back in place. “The gun has limited ammo. It was designed to only be used in life or death situation, hence the limited ammo. Half of it has already been used; I’ve got about twenty bullets left. It’s only for when I’m in extreme danger. Your parents wanted me to be as human as possible, but they knew the risks when they made me and that people would try and destroy me.”

“Oh. That makes sense I guess.” Ashton paused, contemplating his own gun in his hand. “Well, if you’ve got twenty bullets and I’ve got two fifteen bullet magazine, that’s fifty between us. Don’t use them all though. Never know when we may need some defence.”

Ashton’s laptop had loaded up while they were talking, so Ashton brought up the images of outside the base. Luke’s quick hacking of CCTV came in handy; even Ashton couldn’t do it so fast.  They were looking at it from a view from the gates.

Thinking up a game plan, Ashton got back to informing Luke. “Okay, so fuck your ‘only in life or death situations’ gun thing. We’re going to get my siblings out of this shit hole, and try not to murder anyone. Stealth is probably best for this, but I want you to use your gun if you need too. On the way out, we’ll probs have to shoot our way through, so use it then.”

“I understand, Ashton. I will follow your instructions. What do we need to do now?”

Running a hand through his still damp hair, Ashton looked closely at the CCTV footage. “Well, the place seems to be guarded by solely robots. I mean there’s probably a few humans scattered around, but I reckon we can do what we did at my house the other day. If I hack into their frequencies and disable them for as long as we can get away with, we should be able to get in and out fairly fast.”

Beginning to type in codes rapidly on his keyboard, Ashton deciding putting a timer on when the frequency was sent out would be a good idea too. He voiced this to Luke.

“That sounds like a brilliant idea.”

“If I disable the CCTV in the building too, and open all the security locks on doors, we should go undetected on there as well. Nobody will be able to see whereabouts in the facility we are.”

Luke nodded at Ashton’s speech and informed the man that he had a copy of the facilities layout in his head, allowing them the information of whereabouts the holding cells were.

Once they were sure they were ready, Ashton clicked enter.

\--

It didn’t take them long to get inside the facility. With the robots disabled, they pretty much ran straight into the building. They decided to climb through a window, however, when Ashton announced it impractical to head through the front door where they were likely a lot of people ready to kill them.

Luke was leading the way down corridors, since he knew the location of the holding cells. They were lucky to not have encountered any humans yet; all the robots they passed were disabled.

Ashton was feeling impatient. “How fucking far is this place away? We don’t have much time, Luke.”

“It’s not too far now. A couple more corridor switches and we’ll be there. This one here is a long one, look.”

However, as Luke went to point out the corridor, there were two workers facing away from them, causing the pair to stop. Luke immediately went to move his wrist, but Ashton grasped his hand.

The twenty-one year old let out a harsh whisper. “No. We don’t need to do that. First, it’ll make a ton of noise, and two, we don’t need to kill people unless necessary. Let’s just sneak down the corridor and pistol whip them or something.”

“Ok, I will do it. You wait here, Ashton.”

Ashton refused to let Luke shake his hand off, and grasped it tighter. “No, there’s no way. We’ll take a guy each, okay? I’m going down there with you.”

Nodding, Luke eventually agreed with Ashton’s plan and the two of them headed slowly down the corridor. Ashton had a grip on his pistol tightly as he was planning on knocking the guy’s head with it and he was imagining it now: the guy just falling over.

His fantasising was short lived, however, when Luke managed to trip over his long legs when they were just metres away and alerted the two of their presence.

As they spun around, Ashton knew what he had to do, so he raised his gun quickly and pointed it at the man in front of him’s head. He didn’t need to pull the trigger though, as Luke’s gun was already out and both of them were down on the floor in an instant.

“Christ, Luke.” Ashton felt sick. He knew Luke did what likely would have had to be done. Hell, he was preparing to do it himself, but he still wasn’t going to get over the sight of a dead body.

“I am sorry, Ashton, but I had no other choice. I did not want you to have to do it and it was my fault. They probably would have killed you straight away.”

Sighing, Ashton began pacing forward. “It’s okay, Luke. I, uh, forgive you. We need to hurry up now though. I hope the sound of the alarms was enough to cover up that noise.”

Luke took off in front of Ashton again and led them both towards the holding cells. When faced with guards outside the area, they managed to do it stealthily this time. Ashton kind of felt bad when the two people he pistol whipped hit the ground, but then he remembered his siblings were in danger, so his remorse went away.

Although the duo had disabled the security systems within the compound, they had clearly resealed the cells when it went down. Luckily, all it needed to open was an ID tag to enter the door slot, which Ashton stole off of one of the unconscious workers.

“Luke, can you keep watch while I get my siblings out? Don’t let anyone near.”

The blond nodded. “Nobody will make it within ten metres, I promise you. I will keep you safe.”

Ashton flashed Luke a grateful smile, and was ridiculously taken back when Luke smirked at him in response, even adding a fucking wink in there. Where the fuck did he learn _that_?

Turning around and shaking his head to snap himself out of it (God, Ashton, why are you blushing? Stop fucking blushing), he slotted the key card into the door, gun raised just in case.

He was met with the sight of Harry and Lauren curled up on the cell bench together and their eyes lit up when they saw him. The eldest Irwin was soon surrounded by both pairs of their arms, and their gleeful cries.

Harry pressed himself into his brother harder. “Ashton! You came for us! We’ve been so scared.”

“Of course I did, bud. No time to chat now. We really need to go. I’m going to take you back to Gran and Grandpa’s. Luke and I will protect you, just follow us.”

The children followed Ashton back out of the door, where Luke was standing, gun pointing down one corridor. They greeted him shyly when they saw him, and Ashton guessed they were still in awe of him. (He could relate.)

Following behind Luke again, Ashton let his siblings walk in front of him, just to make sure that nobody could creep up and harm them. Luke was stood in front and had promised to protect them, and honestly, Ashton didn’t think he’d let them, let him, down.

When they were about half way back to the exit, the alarm system turned off and everything went silent. Ashton’s palms started to sweat around his hold on the pistol.

The group were already practically running down corridors, only stopping everytime they were about to head into a new one, so that Luke could take a quick peep to ensure nobody was there.

Ashton assessed the situation quickly, knowing a plan of action needed to go ahead now. “We should hurry up. The cameras are probably online again now and they’ll be able to see whereabouts we are in the building. The robots are probably reloading too, so let’s go!”

When they reached the entrance they took earlier, they noted the people stood outside it, probably evacuated from the building.

Luke was the first to react to the unfortunate news. “We cannot go this way, Ashton. What do you want to do? I have mapped several other routes, and the quickest is probably straight out of the front door.”

”Is there any cover out the front? I’m just worried about lack of protection, since we’re probably gunna get fired at.”

Ashton watched as Luke froze for a second, realising that he must be scanning something.

”I just looked at the CCTV out front. The robots are still deactivated, but as you suggested earlier, I think they are going to start back up. There are a few humans around the side of the building like we saw. I cannot see anyone with a gun though. They must have retreated to the armoury to get weapons, or to find us in the building. They probably know where we are now though. We should leave now.”

“Fuck, Luke. I hope you’re right.” Ashton turned to his siblings. “We’re going to have to run very fast now, okay? We have a car parked a few minutes down the road. It’s by a post box. If we get separated, wait there. Hide around that area if you need to.”

After watching his siblings nod, the eldest turned to Luke. ”I want you to shoot anyone who tries to stop us. I’m not going to mess around now my siblings are in danger. Protect them at all costs. If anything happens to me, take them back to my grandparents, and please look after yourself.”

Luke looked slightly taken aback at Ashton’s statement. ”I can do that; that would be a life or death scenario. I am also not leaving you behind. We should go.”

Agreeing, Ashton let Luke lead the way outside and the four of them ran as fast as they could. It was quite the run across the courtyard and they knew it may take them a little while to make it out.

Suddenly, after a shot was fired in their direction, they managed to take cover behind some deactivated robots, allowing a safe place and time for a breather.

Cursing, Ashton changed the plan slightly. ”Fuck. I’ll cover us. If I shoot some bullets their way, they’ll be forced to take cover. You guys run, I’ll be right behind you.”

Soon, they were back to running again and Ashton was firing several bullets in the direction the original shot had come from. It seemed to work as no more bullets were heading their way.

Just as they were about to leave, a robot near the gate seemed to restart, causing Ashton to falter from his cover fire. He heard a shot get taken, causing him to jump down onto the gravel, grimacing at the new pain in the back of his thigh; the bullet had skimmed the back of his leg. 

His siblings yelled out to him, but Luke was ushering them out of the gate and probably telling them the direction to run towards the post box.

Attempting to clamber back to his feet after gripping his gun, which had fallen out of his hand reflexively when the bullet hit, Ashton was forced to drop again, when another bullet fired; clearly, the gunman had seen him rise.

The thought appeared in his head that this was it. Ashton Irwin was going to die today. They'd get to him eventually; he was practically pinned down after all. His blood would splatter across the gravel in various places, or if they wanted Luke, they’d take him in and torture him until he gave his companion up; he wouldn’t do that.

Glancing forwards, he noted Luke still stood by the gate, out of range of the fire. Ashton smiled at him and ushered him on with his eyes; Luke would probably be caught if he stayed there any longer.

Just as Ashton was accepting his fate, Luke marched straight back towards him, firing a couple of intermittent shots off towards Ashton’s shooter, before reaching Ashton, shielding him with his body.

”Hey, we are going to go now. Are you in pain?” Luke’s voice was soft and Ashton just wanted him to talk to him like that forever.

”Only a little bit. Thing barely hit me.”

”Okay, Ashton. Fire some bullets over again and we’ll go now. I’ve got you.”

Nodding, Ashton was helped rise to his feet by Luke, while the hazel eyed man fired some more shots off towards the attacker. The pain in his leg now pressure was on it made him cry out a little, but he was able to limp along fairly quickly.

The pair of them made their way to the exit just as noises began to rumble from the building. Ashton cursed at that and in his startled state, noticed the robot that had loaded up earlier aim its gun towards him and Luke. He didn't have enough time to react, as a bullet was already heading towards them, and embedded itself into Luke's back.

Ashton’s heart dropped in his chest. ”Fuck, Luke!”

”I am fine, Ashton. Let’s go.”

Luckily, they made it down to their car where Harry and Lauren were waiting by the post box. Ashton breathed out a sigh of relief at the sight of his siblings.

When they sped away from the scene a few moments later Ashton couldn't help but wonder how fucking lucky they got.

\--

The car ride back to the Irwins’ grandparent’s home was a quiet one. At first, there was a little bit of chatter. Ashton was curled up in the backseat with his siblings next to him, and Luke was driving the car.

All the information about how the youngest two of the group had been taken was recalled by Lauren, who told them about how they were on their lunch break when they were called to the school office. She tells them about how there were men in cameo, guns holstered at their sides. (“There was even a robot or two, Ash. I was really scared.”)

Harry chimes in, saying that they were bundled into the back of a van and then ended up in that holding cell, where Ashton and Luke had found them about half an hour earlier.

“I’m just glad you’re both safe. We came as fast as…“ Ashton’s speech trailed off into a whine in pain, when the car headed over a bump in the road. The pressure on his thigh was beginning to become more unbearable. He’d deal with it though; it could’ve been much worse.

Luke glanced in the rear view mirror to see Ashton, a frown on his lips. “I apologise, Ashton, I should have slowed down a bit. I will tend to your wound when we get to the house.”

Ashton brushed him off. “Hey, it’s fine. Don’t worry. It’s best to get there fast to make sure we can get away before they find the house’s location.”

The children were keeping a close eye out of the back window to see if any cars could be spotted, or at least one’s that looked like they had military or robot drivers. They seemed to be safe; their grandparent’s house involved taking a lot of back roads, so there weren’t usually many cars anyway.

Once they’d arrived at the house, Ashton’s grandparents had come out of the door, rounding up the children and taking them inside first, motioning Ashton and Luke to follow.

The twenty-one year old was struggling to get out of the car due to his thigh pain. He was braving through it, though, twisting his body around, teeth pressed tightly together to stop himself from crying out.

He didn’t expect it when Luke was suddenly in front of him, grasping a hold of his waist to help lower him down onto his feet. Ashton couldn’t help it when his hands gripped onto the blond’s shoulders so that he could move his body off of the seat.

Once his feet were firmly placed on the ground, Ashton had to look away from Luke, who was smiling at him gently. “T-thanks, Luke. It really fucking hurts, if I’m honest.”

“You do not need to thank me.”

When Ashton risked a glance back at Luke, he realised just how close they were. Luke’s hands were still holding onto his waist and Ashton was still skimming the taller man’s shoulders. Ashton felt surprised at how _comfortable_ it felt.

Blushing furiously, the hazel eyed man removed his hands from Luke’s shoulders, and asked if he could help him walk inside. Luke obliged, and kept one arm wrapped around Ashton’s waist and they wobbled inside together. Luckily, Luke didn’t trip.

On arrival to the living room, Ashton found his grandparents sat on the sofa, and Harry and Lauren curled up against them, clearly happy to be back home (or, well, what was their home now.).

His grandma was dotting over him from the second he entered. “Oh, Ashton, dear, are you okay?”

“A bullet skimmed my leg. I’m okay; I just need to tend to the wound. Should feel a bit better once it’s washed and dressed.”

The elderly lady nodded, and left the room. Ashton could only hope she’d left to get medical supplies.

Asking Luke to take him into the kitchen so he could rest in there, Ashton knew they needed to be quick with things. They could have possibly been followed, and Luke was still under danger of being traced.

“Here you go, Ash. Do you want me to do it for you?” His grandma had dropped some medical supplies down on the table.

Luke spoke up. “I can do it. I have a lot of knowledge.”

Smiling, Ashton’s grandma nodded at Luke. “Well, thank you, Luke. You are a very nice man.”

Ashton was thankful that Luke was true to his word. The blond had effortlessly cleaned out his wound, and dressed it all up neatly. Ashton was feeling slightly embarrassed though (and insecure) as he had to strip off his shoes and jeans, so that Luke could reach his thigh. It felt so intimate - fuck, it really shouldn’t have - to Ashton.

Luke had just finished everything with his wound, when Ashton remembered what had happened just before they left the facility. A bullet had very much lodged itself into Luke’s back. Although Ashton knew Luke could likely take bullets and feel a lack of pain if the garden situation a week ago was anything to go by, but he still couldn’t help but worry.

For now, Ashton pulled up his bloody jeans, not wanting to be exposed anymore in front of Luke. He looked towards the aforementioned male and saw him packing away the leftover medical items that they didn’t need, ready to give back to Ashton’s grandma.

“Hey, Luke? How is your back? You, uh, took a pretty close shot back there.”

The blond stopped to look at him. “It’s fine. Do not worry about me.”

“C-can I take a look? I can take the bullet out for you.”

After Luke nodded as some form of permission, he lifted the back of his Fall Out Boy shirt (he’d had that on since the beginning, even with the small bullet holes in the front) and all Ashton could see was a bullet wedged in the middle of his pale skin.

The hazel eyed man’s tanned palm came up to rest on Luke’s back just beside the bullet. “Christ, this is my fault.”

Luke rejected Ashton’s claim, but the latter still felt slightly guilty. He then asked Luke to pass him the medical supplies, pulling out some tweezers when he had a hold of it.

While prising out the bullet, Ashton had another question for Luke. “Do you feel pain? Like when you were shot, did that hurt you?”

“I have some pain receptors, yes. My pain threshold is much higher than average, and I cannot die from many things that humans can, such as a few bullets. When the bullet hit me, it caused pretty much a shock in my back and it made my brain feel a bit weird. It hurt me, just not as much as it would have hurt you if I had let that hit you instead.”

The bullet clanked against the table as Ashton dropped it down there. He frowned to himself at Luke’s words; why was he suffering in silence?

“It’s okay to tell me when you’re in pain. I know you may want to act like you’re invincible since you’re ultimately a robot, but you’re more human than that, Luke.” Ashton paused. “I’m also done with your back. I mean there’s a hole there now, but I don’t know what to do.”

Pulling his shirt down, Luke thanked Ashton. The hazel eyed man then realised he would probably need another set of clothes; it wasn’t like he would be able to walk around in a bloody pair of jeans.

Luckily, his grandparents had managed to find an old pair of Ashton’s jeans, along with a few other items of his clothing in the house. Ashton gave Luke a new t-shirt too, a black tank top that looked like it would cater for Luke’s broad shoulders. He then packed the rest into the bag with his laptop, as they may come in handy later on.

Before Ashton and Luke left, his grandparents thanked them for rescuing the children and gave them a few more supplies for the road. In return, Ashton told them to keep Harry and Lauren away from their school and possible public areas unless they cover up; he didn’t want to risk their safety again. Of course, the eldest Irwins agreed to this.

All that was left for Ashton and Luke to do that day was to head back to the motel, ditch the car a little bit away (Ashton didn’t really care about them discovering his DNA in the car; they weren’t going to find him), and then head out to another town. Things were forever on repeat.

\--

About four days later, after Luke had spotted a flyer outside the supermarket they had made a quick stop at, Ashton and Luke were going to see the fireworks in the town they were currently staying in. Ashton couldn’t deny Luke when he asked; the blond had smiled widely at him and looked really excited, so he obliged.

For now though, the pair remained at their hotel, deciding it was best to stay out of the public light for as long as possible. Insiders for the military could be milling around, and the chance of police officers knowing about their escapades was rather high. The only good thing was that the military had not sent out a public appeal for their capture; they probably wanted to keep it on the down low to avoid moral panic.

Across the room from Ashton, Luke could barely sit still. The man was curled up on the room’s ratty armchair with ‘ _The Walking Dead’_ on the TV. Ashton knew he was pretty eager for the fireworks; it was something he wanted to experience firsthand.

Ashton, however, was sitting on their bed. There had only been a room with a double bed available when they rocked up to the hotel, and not wanting to waste another moment outside in the town, Ashton had just booked it. Luke had offered to just stay in the chair that night, since he didn’t need to sleep, but Ashton knew the blue eyed man liked to be able to lie down and just relax his systems for a bit, so insisted they just shared the bed.

The thought of sharing a bed with Luke made Ashton feel a little bit nervous, and he was secretly dreading that evening. At the same time though, he couldn’t deny the absolute _divine_ feeling that rushed through his veins.

Luke just confused Ashton.

Turning his attention back to the TV, Ashton wondered what the fireworks would be like. He really hoped it would be one that included all the different types, hoped that although this was a fairly small area that they had the budget for something big. Most of all though, he really wanted it to satisfy Luke’s expectations.

“Hey, Ashton? Who is your favourite character in this? I am curious to know.” Luke had turned to look at Ashton over the back of the chair.

Ashton thought for a minute; it was quite a tough question. “I think it’s probably Tara. I mean, I know she’s not in it a lot, but she’s always really cheery and badass at the same time. Plus, she’s a lesbian, a kickass fucking lesbian. I really appreciate the LGBTQA+ representation, since I’m bisexual.”

Telling Luke about his sexuality came naturally to him, he knew the blond wouldn’t judge him for that. Ashton then wondered about Luke. Was he capable of sexual attraction? Was he capable of even romantic attraction?

“That is a lovely answer, Ashton. You and Tara do share many similarities. I can see why you like her. I like her too.”

With many questions running through his mind, Ashton couldn’t help himself. “I, uh, don’t want to pry and of course you don’t have to answer any of this if you don’t want to, but what is your sexual and romantic orientation? I mean, you’re capable of emotion and empathy, so I can only assume you’re capable of those too.” Luke just looked at him. “Fuck! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t… I’m just…”

The blond stood up and for a second, Ashton thought he was going to walk out of the hotel room. He didn’t though. Instead, Luke came to move across from Ashton, sitting on his crossed over legs at the end of the bed.

“I think I can. It’s hard for me to tell though, since I’ve been up and about for three weeks now. I think I just like people. I don’t really care. People just blend into one another and I feel like I could experience a romantic bond with anyone.” He paused. “I just looked that up. Apparently that means I may be panromantic.”

Ashton nodded. “That’s awesome, Luke. If you’re not sure now, that’s fine. I shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t my place, and if you want to know, I’m biromantic, as well as bisexual.”

“No, Ashton. It’s fine. I enjoy you being open with me, and asking about me. I like talking with you.”

Curse Luke, because now Ashton was blushing as red as a fire engine.

Before Ashton could reply again, Luke continued on. “In terms of sexual attraction, I am not sure if I experience that. I wonder if it is not a thing that I feel.”

“You could be somewhere on the ace scale, Luke. Maybe asexual or demisexual? Don’t worry yourself though; you’ll figure yourself out in your own time. Let me know if you have any questions.”

Luke smiled widely, leaning over towards Ashton. “Thank you, Ashton. I appreciate your help. Please may I hug you?”

The twenty-one year old froze at Luke’s request. It wasn’t like they’d never touched before, or held each other before (Ashton tried to brush away the image of Luke’s hands on his waist from the other day), but this was something more intimate and Luke was the one initiating it in _that_ way.

Sheepishly nodding, Ashton was wrapped up in Luke’s arms, after the blond pretty much threw himself at him. Ashton fell back in surprise and then realised that Luke was now lying on top of him, his face buried in his neck.

“This is nice. I understand why humans like physical touch a lot. I am glad I researched.” Luke’s voice was muffled when he spoke.

Giggling (what the _fuck_ was that?), Ashton couldn’t help but agree, and embraced Luke tighter. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

\--

“Are the fireworks going to be really loud, Ashton? I looked up a few videos and they seemed pretty loud.”

The two companions were making their way to the seafront where the fireworks were going to be set off. Luke had been asking questions non-stop since they’d left the hotel, and Ashton couldn’t help but feel endeared by it; his fascination with them was kinda cute.

“Probably. It’s bearable though. I hope your ears aren’t extra sensitive.”

Ashton’s teasing seemed to go over the top of Luke’s head. “Oh no. They are not. I can always switch them off if I have to.”

It didn’t take them long to arrive at the seafront. The fireworks were going to be set off from the end of the town’s pier, so Ashton led Luke along to a spot on a wall, not too close to other people, just in case of any military hovering around. Ashton wasn’t too on edge though, as Luke had his spare hoodie on, the blond’s floppy fringe sticking out from underneath; he rarely wore his hair in a quiff anymore (“It’s too inconvenient, Ashton. I do not have the time to do that every morning.”). This meant that they were slightly incognito.

Their arms were brushing together as they sat on the wall, due to Luke practically bouncing up and down in his spot. Ashton was feeling rather excited now too; it had been a while since he’d last seen fireworks.

Along with that excitement, however, Ashton couldn’t help but be pessimistic. What if this was the last time he saw some fireworks? He knew that this journey he was on could likely lead to death or life in prison. This led to him now learning to appreciate everything like it’s the last day of his life, because any day could be.

He turned to look at Luke then for a moment, seeing the blue eyed man staring at the end of the pier just waiting. Ashton felt a strong need to protect Luke wash over him in that moment. It didn’t feel like an obligation like it may have done to Ashton at the beginning, but instead something that he would do anyway, even if his parents hadn’t asked. Ashton would make sure Luke lived at any cost.

Checking the time on his phone (he always kept it offline, just in case the military found his number and tried to track him), Ashton noticed that it was just a few minutes until the fireworks started. He voiced this to Luke.

Luke’s eyes lit up even more. “Really? I am fucking ready!”

At Luke’s cursing, Ashton giggled, and God, he was so fond of Luke, despite all that he had done that may have made him think otherwise. Ashton didn’t really hold any of that against him anymore; he realised that Luke’s actions, although rather brutal, were the best they could’ve done in the scenarios given.

The two sat in silence in anticipation of the fireworks, and when the first one graced the night’s sky, Luke squealed with glee (Ashton totally didn’t give him the fondest look possible at that).

Ashton’s attention was fully on the show, and he momentarily forgot he and Luke were on the run from the government. None of that mattered in the moment, watching the bright colours converge in the sky, and fizzling out gently into the black.

In a way, Ashton felt like his life could relate to a firework. The moment of being set off was his birth, and through the gradual climb of the firework into the sky acted as his path of life. When the firework reached the top, it exploded into colour, a magnificent pattern in the sky, and maybe that was like a big moment in someone’s life, whether good or bad. Then came the fall, the firework dimming and falling to the ground, and that could act as the path to death, or the decent into life after this big event.

At the point in his life, Ashton felt like he was still on his climb, or maybe he’d already exploded. Maybe meeting Luke was that explosion for Ashton. He felt like he was on the top of the world in this moment, so he let that thought slip.

The fireworks were still being set off when Luke nudged Ashton’s side, causing the older man to turn to his companion. “Yeah, Luke?” He had to lean in much closer to ensure his voice was heard.

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed as he began to speak. “These fireworks are very extravagant. I feel so inferior. It is just that we are here in the dark sitting on a wall, watching something that far outshines us with its beauty, and it is making me feel small in comparison. They are so delicate and intricate.

“This makes me wonder about the world and humanity. You have created so many things of beauty and these things may seem simplistic to you and normal, but to me, everything is beautiful and I appreciate it all. I am so glad I get to experience humanity. To be here with you, Ashton. Thank you.”

God, Ashton didn’t know _what_ was happening to him. His heart was suddenly beating so fast that it felt like it wanted to escape. His breath just caught in his throat looking at Luke, and he felt so sick, because he was so perfect. Ashton didn’t like to use that term, because he believed that nothing was perfect, but as he glanced into Luke’s blue eyes, he felt like he’d found the one thing that was.

Ashton felt like Luke was more human than he was. Luke was everything humanity embodied: he had flaws, whether it be physical or psychological, and he could _feel_. Ashton wished he could rub Luke in the faces of anyone who said a robot couldn’t be a human, because Luke proved them wrong.

If Ashton knew what all that meant (he did), he tried to brush it aside; none of it mattered and he shouldn’t feel like that. Fuck, was it so _wrong_ of him to feel like that?

The twenty-one year old thought Luke was beautiful. He’d always thought Luke was beautiful. From the moment they met, he’d been captivated by the fact he was a robot that was pretty fucking human. It was something more now, something way beyond scientific interest.

The sound of the fireworks going off was still present, but Ashton had lost track of how long he’d just been staring at Luke. The fireworks weren’t the main attraction anymore.

The hazel eyed man thought about closing the gap between them, just touching his lips softly to Luke’s even for a second. He didn’t though; he knew even feeling about Luke in the way he’d now realised he did was bad enough, but kissing him would reach a whole unchartered territory.

Since he wasn’t letting himself give in to his selfish wishes, Ashton made a compromise with himself and settled for resting one of his hands on Luke’s shoulder, along with giving the blond a soft smile.

“That’s cute, Luke.” He finally managed to get some words out. “I’ve never thought about things from that perspective, but it’s probably because I’ve lived for twenty-one years and as you said, for me it’s fairly normal.”

Luke shot him a smile in return too, turning back to the fireworks, which seemed to be hitting their climax. That caused Ashton to remove his hand from Luke, trying to push away the sadness in his gut at the lack of contact.

“Oh, another thing, Ashton.” Ashton didn’t even need to turn back to Luke; he’d never looked away. “What is love? What does it feel like?”

Ashton’s eyes widened. What was Luke insinuating with _that_? Where had that question immediately come from? He couldn’t deny that his heart had sped up again, even though its beat had never really died down. The hazel eyed man couldn’t help the scenarios that formed in his head: Luke blurting out that he thinks he may love Ashton; Luke sweeping Ashton into his arms and kissing him.

Luke knocked Ashton back to reality. “I just feel like I love watching these fireworks. I feel so content and happy here. I may be in love with them.”

Okay, Ashton should’ve guessed something like that would’ve come out of Luke’s mouth. It was typical of him to not understand things properly or to be a bit quizzical with things. It was cute. Ashton shouldn’t have got his hopes up though; he knew it would inevitably be wrong.

“This is going to sound really cheesy, but, uh, when you love something, you want to do that thing or be around that person a lot, because it makes you happy. You feel like if you had to pick something to be the only thing you had with you for the rest of your life, it would be that thing or that person.” Ashton paused. “You also only tend to say you’re in love with someone when you love them romantically. I-it’s probably one thing some people want in their lives: someone that loves them unconditionally.”

“Oh, thank you for telling me, Ashton. I think I do love these fireworks then. I would be happy watching them a lot.” Luke’s blue eyes were now shimmering under the reflection of the fireworks and it was driving Ashton insane. “That last bit is good to know too; it helps with my understanding like with the orientations.”

The fireworks had just ended and people were cheering from down the road in celebration. Ashton knew they needed to leave now, but he was kind of dreading the bed situation again now, especially as he’d faced his feelings for Luke internally only fifteen minutes before.

Ashton announced that they should leave and Luke immediately agreed, thanking Ashton again for allowing the two of them to go and see the show. The blond seemed to be hoping that he’d get another chance to see a show in the future, but this only reminded Ashton of his pessimism earlier.

God, if only things were _easy_ for them.

\--

“Pull the fuck into that drive through. I’m starving here, Luke.”

It had been two days since the fireworks and the moment Ashton realised his feelings for Luke. The pair of them had just checked out of a hotel and were heading over to a new area to stay in. They had been on the road for about an hour driving a car that they stole from a car park; there were a lot of dark clouds about, so the probability of rain was high. The need for a car, therefore, was much greater.

Ashton thanked Luke when he pulled around into the Mc Donald’s drive through, and was satisfied when he received his food. Luke looked at him a bit weirdly when he started stuffing fries into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

They didn’t get far when they took back onto the road, as the clouds had opened up and rain was coming down heavily; there was even thunder thrown into the mix. Luke was trying his best, driving through the storm that had just started, but the windscreen wipers weren’t doing much.

Eventually, Ashton managed to convince Luke to pull over into a rest area at the side of the road until it eased up. This allowed Ashton to eat his Mc Donald’s much easier too.

“What is that food, Ashton? I am curious to what it tastes like.”

Ashton turned to look at Luke, his mouth full of chicken after he’d just bitten into it (great, Ashton, you look so _unattractive_.). Once he’d chewed and swallowed, he replied. “It’s fast food. It’s not very good for you, but I have fries and a chicken sandwich. They’re pretty yummy. I don’t know how to describe taste to you if you’ve never experienced it at all. “

Luke nodded, accepting Ashton’s answer. The blond then went back to looking out of the front window, seemingly watching the rain fall down.

Frowning, Ashton felt bad that he couldn’t provide a solid answer for Luke’s question. He wished that there was a way that Luke would be able to taste food and have needs just like he did; he could have the full human experience.

This led to Ashton thinking about how humanlike he was; Luke had told him before about his lack of need to sleep, eat and other necessities like that, but the twenty-one year old was now thinking about the composition of his body. His arm gun was obviously something modified from the general human form, however, other things may not be. (Ashton totally was not thinking about Luke’s… _anatomy_ ).

“Hey, Luke? I was just thinking: how humanlike is your body? I-I know you may not want to answer, but shoot me, I’m curious – wait, please don’t take that literally.” Ashton shook his head. “Like, do parts of your body function the same as a human’s? Like, you blink, but does that actually do anything for you?”

Luke appeared to be thinking for a moment, so Ashton took another bite out of his chicken sandwich to avoid staring at the blond. Now that he’d accepted his attraction to Luke, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d stared at him unconsciously a lot in the past; he felt a lot more self conscious about it now.

“Blinking is not necessary for me, because my eyes do not really need to be protected like yours do. It is just there to make me more human. In terms of my nose, per say, I have nostrils, but I don’t need to breathe. Also, I told you, I do not mind talking to you about these things; you can ask me. Anyway, is this all you were thinking about?”

God, Ashton didn’t know in that moment whether to go ahead and ask about the very _specific_ part of Luke’s body he’d been thinking about.

“Uh, this may be a bit too invasive, b-but I was wondering how your, you know, works?” Luke gave him a confused look, and Ashton blushed as he had to go on. “Fuck, your penis, Luke. You know: genitals, cock, dick, gonads. There are many words, and fuck should I probably stop listing them and shut myself up.” Ashton kinda wanted to throw himself into a hole and bury himself down there. If this wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of his life, then he mustn’t have lived.

Luke looked a little amused at the elder’s words and Ashton cursed his parents for allowing Luke to have the hottest smirk he’d ever seen, because he swore he was about to die just from that. (If _that_ didn’t kill him though, the embarrassment surely would.)

“Right, well I have a penis, yes, Ashton. I don’t produce semen like most other people with a penis and testicles, since I am a robot. I do not need to urinate either or anything like that. I am unsure on whether getting an erection would be possible for me, but I am sure I could probably control it, or maybe if I find that I do experience sexual attraction, it may work on its own like humans’ do.”

Ashton blushed even harder. “Woah, easy there, tiger. I did not need that much depth.”

“Do you want to see it? It will probably make more sense if you-“

It was terrible that Ashton’s first thought was yes, but he didn’t voice this. “No! No! What the hell, Luke?! That’s… No!”

Feeling like his face was about to set alight by how much he was blushing, Ashton turned to look down at the few remaining fries in the case and to not think about what Luke’s dick may look like, although he was sure it’d just look like any other human dick. What size did his parents make it though? Ashton felt like that was a very important question that he definitely needed answering.

Regretting his thoughts instantly, because where the fuck had that come from, he knew he began blushing harder and he was sweating too. God, he really hoped Luke wasn’t able to tell that Ashton had a big, fat crush on him, or he was inevitably screwed. (It was wrong, so wrong of him.)

The hazel eyed man was so deep in thought that it startled him when Luke’s hand was suddenly on his cheek, brushing his knuckles gently. “Your cheeks are really red. Why is that?”

Ashton was so, so screwed. “Uh, I, um, I-I just… It’s really fucking stuffy in here! I’m gonna, haha, take off my jacket so I can cool down, you know? That’s what you do when you’re super hot! It’s totally not because of y – I mean, shit, I think we should start driving again.”

To make his story believable, Ashton had taken off his hoodie and thrown it in the backseat of the car, turning to look at Luke with an awkward grin on his face. He couldn’t believe what had gotten into him. _Luke_ was making him feel like this and the lack of control was making Ashton feel scared.

Risking a glance at Luke, he noticed the man looked rather concerned, and luckily, seemed to buy his story, turning on the car’s air conditioning on a cool setting.

When the car started back up, Ashton tried to pull himself together and once again cursed his parents. This time for making a robot that was impossible not to love.

\--

The past few days had fortunately been kind to Ashton.  He and Luke had not bumped into anyone suspicious, Luke had not been doing _too_  many things that made Ashton flustered, and his siblings had called briefly via Luke, which, although, had ended in Ashton shedding a few tears.

The two companions had been staying in one motel for the past few days, so heading out to another area was greatly needed, which was why they were on their way to the nearest train station.

For some reason, Luke was really excitable that morning and Ashton couldn't help but watch on rather wistfully. He couldn't help it; Luke was just too enticing. The blond was practically bouncing off of the pavement, as they wormed their way in and out of crowds, keeping in the shadows wherever possible. Ashton envied that attitude a little too; if only he could feel that at ease in the situation they were in.

The train station was entered after the short walk, tickets were bought and a train was boarded. 

When buying tickets, Ashton had just gotten them for the next destination of a train. It was only one of the smaller train lines, so it wasn’t going to any big city miles away, but instead other small towns in the nearest vicinity. 

It wasn’t overly busy on the train, which was rather lucky and hopefully would benefit them. Ashton, therefore, allowed himself to spread across two seats with Luke in front of him on the other side of a table.

Once the train began moving, Luke had turned to the twenty-one year old. “It is nice to be on a train. I rather like it. I know we have been on trains a few times, but it never ceases to make me smile.” 

“Yeah, it's such a pleasant form of transport, since you can get up and move about, but see the countryside as you go. It's not as confined as a car.”

Luke then went on about his love for trains, which Ashton was barely listening to, if he was honest with himself. All he could do was watch the blond fondly as his face went through a range of expressions during his explanation of his feelings; it was doing too much to Ashton's heart rate.

As the train began to pull in at the next station, which was the stop before the pair’s, a voice came over the tannoy. “Good afternoon, passengers. As we pull in at this next stop, everyone is required to get off the train as there is a mandatory security check. It should not take long, and once the check has taken place, we will be back on the track. Sorry for any inconveniences this may cause.”

Luke cursed from his position across from Ashton, and as they pulled in at one of the platforms, Ashton could see the line up of military members on a further platform by the exit. 

“Fuck, Luke. Hit the ground.” Ashton watched as Luke leant over and hit the floor with his fist. “Jesus shit. I meant like get on the floor.”

After Luke had clambered down, pulling his stuff with him, Ashton followed suit sitting beside him. The train had been evacuated by this point, people begrudgingly walking over to the exits where they were being called. 

Ashton felt a slight panic well up inside him. “What the fuck are we going to do?”

Luke appeared to be thinking for a moment. “We should stay on this train for as long as possible and wait for an exit.”

Nodding, Ashton pulled his handgun out of his bag, checking the amount of bullets. He had about three left in his current magazine, and one full magazine with about fifteen in there. He voiced this to Luke.

“I have twelve in my own gun. I used quite a few back at the facility where we got your siblings.” Luke then paused momentarily. “The officers are coming to check the train now.”

Ashton was taken aback slightly. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“I hacked into their communication systems and the train station’s CCTV. There seems to be no robots, so there’s no way we can disable them and try to use that as a distraction.”

 _Oh_ , Ashton should have thought of that. After that thought, a banging noise was heard from the carriage to the left of them; the officers were climbing on to check it out.

“Fuck, we need to move forward on the train. Is it safe to do that, Luke?”

Once Luke had nodded in response, the pair of them took to running low through all the carriages until they reached the last one; there were only four.

“We have to get off. They’re probably gunna get here in the next minute and if they do, we’re fucking toast.”

Luke look confused. “We will become toast? That does not seem to make much sense to me.”

“Aha, fuck, Luke. It’s a metaphor, rather hyperbolic too. It means we’ll get caught or killed as soon as they see us, okay?” Ashton paused. “Let’s climb out onto the platform furthest from the exit. There should be the underground walkways we can head into to get out since there are multiple platforms. I’m hoping no military will be down there and then we can just run and gun through the exit if we need to.”

“I concur with that, Ashton. Let’s go.”

The doors on the train opened electronically when a button was pressed, so Ashton watched as Luke managed to connect to it and open the door. They ran out quickly, keeping crouched and ensuring the door was swiftly shut behind them.

Once on the platform, Ashton led the way to the underground walkways that he found due to the directions on the ceiling, using the train as cover from being spotted. They were soon down there and luckily, nobody was milling around.

Despite the lack of people, Ashton decided it was best to whisper. “Okay, we’re gunna have to just make a run for it. There’s no way we’re gunna get through if we attempt to blend in since everyone’s being checked. We’ll just slip past the guards and run. If we get split up, just head to the hotel in the next town we were planning to stay in.”

“Yes, although, I will protect you, Ashton. We shall stay together.”

Trust Luke to say that shit when they’re in a sticky situation. Ashton was now blushing furiously, so he moved his gun awkwardly in his hands to have something else to focus on.

“Let’s go then.”

The attempt to sneak past failed miserably, when Luke somehow walked into a bin, alerting nearby military of their presence. It took them a few seconds for the recognition to set in and in those few seconds, Ashton had bolted, dragging Luke along with him.

That’s when the shots begun.

Any civilians in the area immediately took cover or ran aimlessly in an attempt to escape. Ashton kept going, keeping Luke in his sight as the blond was slightly ahead of him at this point.

When a shot collided with a newsstand about two feet from Ashton, Luke had come running back, pushing Ashton in front of him and picking up the pace again.

They’d soon exited the train station, where, unfortunately, there were a few officers on standby. Ashton ploughed past them, before they could even notice that the pair of them were running away.

That didn’t last long, however, as the officers behind them had alerted them. That meant that more of the military were on their tail, leading the oldest to fire the last remaining shots in his magazine in an attempt to slow them down. Thankfully, it worked, as some of them stopped briefly, ducking for cover.

While running, Ashton released his old magazine, letting it tumble to the floor, before inserting the new one. He had to be sure his gun was loaded; they needed to be ready at all times, especially now as they were part of a full on chase.

Ashton was thankful he used to go to the gym and run a few times a week while he was at university. The amount of stamina that was needed at the time was crucial. Luke was okay; he didn’t need to breathe, so didn’t fatigue.

The tall blond was suddenly yelling. “Ashton! I have looked at some CCTV. The town centre seems like a good place to go. It’ll be busy so we can try and lose them there. They will be forced to stop shooting too.”

Briefly nodding at Luke, the twenty-one year old followed the street signs for the town’s centre. A few more shots rang out from behind him, but it seemed Luke was firing a few back.

Luckily, the streets towards the town centre were too narrow, meaning no squad cars could follow; any officers would have to be on foot. The road opened out though into a shopping area, with shrubs in the centre.

Feeling tired and out of breath, Ashton tried to get Luke’s attention. “Fuck, where are we going?!”

Ashton didn’t receive a response to his question, as he and Luke were being fired at again despite many civilians milling around; the military clearly didn’t care about any collateral damage. That meant they probably had no problem killing either of them.

They managed to run for a while longer, blending in a bit with the mass crowd, which led to them seemingly losing quite a few of the officers; they’d probably split up to look for them.

Eventually, Ashton dragged Luke into an alleyway in a backstreet. He was panting heavily, having only had a few short rests on the run, while they were concealed by crowds.

“I- Jesus, fuck.” Ashton took off his backpack, grasping a water bottle in his hand and gulping the contents down, before putting everything back. “Ok, I’m refreshed. Let’s go again. There should be a hotel not too-”

“Aha, looks like we found them.”

Before Ashton could think, Luke was stood in front of him, while two figures dressed normally (Ashton cursed himself for forgetting the military probably sent out people undercover), one man and one woman, walked into the alley, guns held out in front of them.

The woman laughed and Ashton went to raise his gun up, but was stopped when she motioned to her gun. “Wouldn’t do that, sunshine. You’ll just make things worse for yourself and this… _thing_ with you.”

For a second, Ashton was confused, but he then realised that she was calling Luke a “thing” causing anger to flare up inside him. It was exactly like the other time they were ambushed, where the captain of the last squad had been extremely rude about Luke.

When Ashton went to retaliate, the man decided it was his turn to have an input. “Aw, look! The robot wants to protect this idiot. Well, it’s not gunna work, you vile creature. We have orders to bring you in, but they’re not set in stone. We can kill you both if we want.”

The woman laughed again, nudging the man. “I get to kill the thing. It isn’t very intimidating to be honest.”

The hazel eyed man wasn’t having any of that, moving from behind Luke to stand beside him. “Would you shut the fuck up?!”

“Oh gosh, do stop. This is making me want to puke.” The man rolled his eyes. “Do you seriously want to protect it? Why don’t you just hand it over? Make this all easier for everyone? We’ll make sure you die quickly.”

Ashton honestly felt sick to his stomach. How could they talk like this? How could they call _Luke_ an “it”?

“You’re not touching Ashton and you’re definitely not killing him. I will kill both of you before you even step a foot near him.”

The pair of military officers laughed again and Ashton wondered what was up with that. Rather sadistic, he thought.

It seemed to Ashton like Luke was about to pull his wrist down and get his gun out (he’d put it away earlier when they’d tried to blend in with the crowds), but he was stopped abruptly when the woman pulled out some device, pressed something, and Luke fell to the ground in an instant.

Ashton was ashamed of the noise that came out of his mouth when that happened, and he dropped to his knees to assess the damage. All of Luke’s systems were down from what he could see. If he didn’t know Luke was a robot, he would’ve thought he was dead.

Practically cackling now, the man moved his gun to point down at Ashton now. “Oops. What was that about killing us, hmm?”

After standing up again, raising his gun fast, before the officers could protest, Ashton yelled, almost hysterically. “What the fuck have you done?!”

The woman spun the device around her fingers making a big show of it. “Well, you see, this little remote here is programmed to stop this robot from short distance. It shuts down all systems, renders it immobile. Our mole made this one especially, well a few of them. It’s universal. Works on all robots, but mainly this one, since we finally have the right coding to see what makes this thing tick, just can’t separate it from the military robots yet.”

Ashton cocked his gun forward, resting his finger by the trigger. “I’m going to fucking kill you both.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” The woman spoke again, smiling in a sickening way. “We’ll kill you first, I assure you.”

The man chimed in, agreeing with the woman. “I highly doubt you have it in you to shoot us anyway. You’re shaking over there. Don’t feel so safe without the robot to protect you, do you?”

Ashton’s brain was fuzzy at this point, as the pair of officers in front of him were still talking, chatting on and on about how Luke is disgusting, calling him an it again. He just couldn’t think logically. All that was going through his mind was that they hurt Luke. They hurt _his_ Luke. God, he could barely comprehend how possessive and unnecessary that was of him.

That’s why his gun aimed by itself, straight at the woman’s chest first, as she was closer. He didn’t think they had any armour on, as, after all, they were undercover in civilian outfits and thought they’d ambush well.

The first shot rang out and clearly startled the pair of officers, who had gotten rather enticed into their conversation. The woman fell.

Continuing with what he’d started, Ashton aimed at the man, just as the other was doing the same. Two shots rang out. Ashton’s shot hit the man in the neck, his hand frantically going up in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t work. He bled out on the floor, just like his partner.

While that was happening, the man’s bullet left slightly after Ashton’s, and at a bad angle due to Ashton’s hitting first, giving the twenty-one year old time to dive to the ground. This action, however, reopened the wound on the back of this thigh as he fell, if the searing pain was anything to go by.

Panting on the floor and cringing in pain, the weight of what just happened finally fell on Ashton. He’d just murdered those two people. He hadn’t even hesitated, fired the bullets straight at them in places he knew would do critical damage if aid was not sought. He was a murderer.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” His fist pounded the floor with each word to express his inner frustration, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit more… calm.

Once that had briefly washed over him, Ashton dragged himself along the floor to the woman’s corpse, grabbing the remote she had and crushing it after finding no reverse switch on it (he pressed the only button and it did nothing).

Through his pain, he then made his way to Luke, pulling himself, his companion and their things behind a rubbish bin to hide them for the time being, despite the aching pain in his thigh that was practically begging him not to.

Ashton leant over Luke’s limp body, now feeling tears on his cheeks and he couldn’t tell what part of the whole ordeal had made him feel that way. “Luke, please. I- I _need_ you. Please.”

Allowing himself a moment, he rested his forehead against Luke’s, just letting himself be selfish for one second. His hand reached up to touch the blond’s cheek, his tan fingertips gently dancing over his skin. He relished in how human his flesh was, how it made Luke so, so beautiful.

Shaking his head after just a few seconds, Ashton pulled back, wiping his tears. “Jesus, fuck, what am I doing? Like Troy Bolton said, get’cha head in the game.” He then paused. “Fuck, I’m a freak.”

Deciding to pull up his laptop and hoping he could get into Luke’s coding that way, he hacked into the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot. His robotics knowledge came in handy too as he glanced Luke over and figured a way to reboot him with his laptop.

While it was working, Ashton grasped Luke’s hand tightly in his, waiting and hoping he’d got it right and that Luke’s eyes would open.

They did and Ashton was met with the sea of blue he’d fallen for. Luke was looking up at him, seeming a bit groggy, like he’d woken up from a hangover. “Ashton? What happened? Why are you crying? Why am I on the ground?”

Giggling, Ashton smacked Luke gently on the arm, resisting the urge to lean down and kiss him, because nope, that was bad. “I was so scared. Don’t do that again.”

Ashton wasn’t fully prepared when Luke sat up and then brushed his knuckles across the eldest’s cheek, wiping up the tears. His heart was beating so fast.

“I am sorry. I did not do that voluntarily. What happened?”

What little peace Ashton had found momentarily was washed away by Luke’s question. God, what was Luke going to think of him when he told him he murdered those two people without a second thought?

“I’ll, um, tell you, but we need to get to a hotel. Plus, my thigh is bleeding pretty badly, so you’re gunna have to help me walk.”

Luke looked at Ashton concerned. “Okay, Ashton. Let’s hope they military have given up.”

And hell, did Ashton hope they had.

\--

Two days later, Ashton figured something was up with Luke. Ever since that day running from the train station, Luke had been overtly off with the elder, not acting himself and being much more stoic.

The whole evening straight after the ordeal, Ashton couldn’t see anything wrong; Luke had re-bandaged his wound, smiled and had been his weird self. When he looked back at that though, he felt like Luke was forcing a smile.

The next day, Ashton thought Luke was down in the dumps and it was just an off day, so he gave him a bit of space, trying to tone down any affection that he wanted to give his companion.

It hadn’t worn off by the time they were up and moving on the second day after the incident. They’d headed out pretty early to make it to the next stop to stay and Luke had barely spoken a word. Anything out of his mouth was overly articulate, like he’d reverted back to his self before he’d learnt anything. He wouldn’t swear anymore, would avoid Ashton’s eyes, and isolated himself whenever possible.

Now, in their new hotel room, Ashton wondered what he’d done wrong. He was honestly craving some affection from Luke. He had tried the previous night to just snuggle up beside him a little, but the blond had moved away and gone to rest his systems, leaving Ashton lonely on their hotel room’s couch.

Despite the fact Luke seemed to not care about Ashton killing those people and had told him that he did what he had to, Ashton couldn’t help but worry that Luke was ignoring him because of that. What if he thought Ashton’s humanity had slipped away? What if he thought Ashton was a monster now? Luke was supposed to be learning all about humanity and how to be human from Ashton, so how could Ashton do something so stupid and contradictory to that? What a shit role model he was.

Although he knew Luke had killed before, Ashton still thought he was a great envision of humanity, but Luke had no choice but to kill. Ashton felt like he didn’t have to kill those people, could’ve talked his way out of it instead. He didn’t have to shoot to kill. He could’ve done more to stop himself from resorting to murder and still saved Luke.

Deep down, however, Ashton knew he had no choice and was just being stupid. Those people were going to kill Luke. They were going to take him away and destroy him. They would’ve killed Ashton too and then there would have been nothing he could do to save Luke; he would’ve failed him and his parents, who died so that Luke could live.

Currently though, Luke was sitting on a wooden dining chair, watching the news on the TV. Ashton glanced him over from his position on the couch. His body was incredibly stiff and he was sitting fully upright with a blank expression on his face like he was dining in a formal setting.

It made his heart hurt so much. Luke would usually be right beside him on the sofa, or at least sparking up a conversation about what was on the TV if necessary. He’d let Ashton hug him if he wanted, or even would initiate it himself, ever since he’d found joy in it that night they went to see the fireworks.

The person sitting in the chair didn’t feel like his Luke. Even in the beginning, when Luke barely had a grasp on humanity, he was always asking questions, saying things that he didn’t quite know the true meaning for, but he’d never done something like this, even after almost a month of them travelling together.

Deciding to tackle the situation more persistently this time (Ashton had already tried talking to Luke, but bland, often one worded, responses were received), Ashton knew he needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to help Luke or to find out what he’d done wrong and fix it. He couldn’t have Luke act like this with him for the rest of their time together.

Rising from his spot on the couch, Ashton made his way over to the place across from Luke at the table, perching down on another of the dining chairs. Just as he went to speak once there, Luke stood up and moved over to his bed, sitting rigidly on the end of it.

Pretending that his heart wasn’t breaking, the hazel eyed man followed, sitting on his own bed next to Luke’s, but the blond was about to get up again.

Ashton’s hand flew to his wrist, grasping it tightly to stop Luke from moving again. “Luke, please, what’s wrong? What have I done to upset you?”

Luke didn’t move, didn’t even bother trying to prise Ashton from his wrist. “Nothing is wrong, Ashton. Everything is fine.”

By receiving more than a one worded response, Ashton took that as a slight victory and hopefully a beginning to his breakthrough. He spoke softly when he next addressed his companion. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend there’s nothing wrong. I can help you. That’s what I’m here for.”

An audible exhale passed Luke’s lips and Ashton wondered how he could even do that since he didn’t breathe. “Nothing is wrong. I am fine.”

At this point, Ashton was feeling a little frustrated. He knew he’d only been talking to Luke for a few moments but he was already getting the feeling this would go nowhere and Luke’s stubborn attitude wasn’t helping him fix things.

“I’m not going to be offended if I’ve done something wrong. I just want you to tell me, so I can fix it. Don’t you want that? I’ll do anything, okay?”

“Stop, Ashton. There is nothing to talk about.”

Ashton was just feeling pain by this point. Why wouldn’t Luke tell him what was going on? “Of course there is! You’re ignoring me all the time. I can’t take it, Luke! Just tell me what it is! I’ll fix it for you. I promise!”

Luke ripped his wrist from Ashton’s grip, startling the latter. The blond didn’t move from his spot though, standing frozen at the end of his bed. “I am going to sit on the couch and continue watching the news. I better make sure we are not on there.”

Following Luke’s lead of standing up, Ashton did the same, walking round in front of him so he couldn’t move to where he wanted to be. Luke refused to meet his eyes, as Ashton gazed up at him, only standing half a foot away.

“Please! Luke, just- fuck, tell me what’s going on. I’m worried about you. I miss-“

The “you” was left unsaid, as something in Luke’s demeanour snapped and he was suddenly grasping onto Ashton’s shirt, his blue eyes finally connecting with Ashton’s hazel. They were blank, cold, detached.

“Shut the fuck up, Ashton! Leave me alone! Stop whining on and on and on about this and that and whatever else. I am fine! I have told you that so many times, but you just won’t leave it alone. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to speak to you!”

God, Ashton was willing himself not to cry. He sniffed and glanced away from Luke, embarrassed at his reaction. Something about that seemed to make Luke loosen his grip.

“Ashton, I am sorry. I didn’t mean all of that, but I just want some space. I am going to the vending machine. I will be back soon.”

With that, Luke was gone. He’d left the room, which led Ashton to reflect on what had just happened. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking so much with his upset, and when a tear fell onto his palm, he brought it up to his eyes to scrub at them rapidly, knowing that wasn’t going to be the only tear.

All he wanted was to fix things with Luke, but he couldn’t even do that right.

\--

Things had died down by the day after. Luke had silently apologised to Ashton by bringing him back a bag of his favourite crisps and spoke to him a little more. The blond was still withdrawn from him and wasn’t his usual self, but Ashton was accepting it for now; it was a start.

He would’ve tried to prod Luke a little more at this time, but after his outburst the day before, no matter if he meant it or not, Ashton didn’t want a repeat of that. It honestly scared him a little, Luke yelling in his face like that and gripping onto him aggressively.

They’d left the hotel they were in just before the last check out time and had stolen a car to drive them somewhere new. Ashton was driving as he felt like he needed to put his mind on something else rather than Luke, who had chosen to sit in the backseat.

As they’d checked out late and they’d been driving for a few hours, it was dark outside and Ashton was feeling the hunger rise up in him. He was frankly tired too, as he’d spent all night awake worrying about Luke.

After he saw a sign that looked like it was referring to some kind of rest stop, Ashton pulled into it and parked the car. The area they were in was quite far from the nearest town and Ashton just wanted to eat then sleep. He figured they could just stay in the car for the night and hoped nobody caught them.

There was nobody around when Ashton climbed out of the car and took a look. They were on some cliff tops that overlooked a small beached area and the sea seemed to glimmer under the moon that was high in the sky.

Luke was suddenly beside him. “What are we doing here, Ashton?”

“I’m hungry and tired. Figured we could just stay here for tonight. Is that okay?”

The blond nodded, before walking over to the boot and pulling out a carrier bag with food in it along with a blanket he’d found in the car’s boot. Ashton watched as he walked ahead to find a grassy spot to sit on, delicately placed the blanket down, before sitting on it.

Deciding to follow the blond, Ashton perched down beside Luke, rummaging through the carrier to find any food he fancied to eat. They’d picked up a lot at the supermarket they’d stopped at before they left the last town. Well, Ashton did, since Luke didn’t eat and just walked along about two feet behind him with a broody expression on his face.

After picking up a sandwich to eat, Ashton felt like giving it another go to talk to Luke again. The blue eyed man was just sitting there glancing out onto the horizon, looking really serious. Ashton thought that maybe if he felt relaxed by the ocean he may open up.

He started with topics that were completely away from the mark of what he really wanted to ask. The twenty-one year old tried to discuss robotics, knowing Luke would probably enjoy that too, but he received ill in return. He asked about Luke’s interests again, what he liked and didn’t like, but only a few one worded answers came out.

By the time Ashton had finished his sandwich (and a packet of crisps, a few biscuits, an orange, and a bottle of water), Luke had barely said a word to him, despite the amount he’d tried while eating his meal.

Frustrated, Ashton threw his rubbish back in the bag, even though there was still uneaten food in there, before standing up. “Do you know what? I fucking give up with you. I’m going to sleep in the car. Be quiet when you come in.”

Not even bothering to pick up the bag of food, Ashton began to walk off to the car. He didn’t get far, since Luke had called out to him.

“Do you think I’m disgusting, Ashton?”

Ashton froze in his spot. Where was this coming from?

He turned to face Luke, sighing. “No, of course I don’t. I’m- I’m just a little frustrated. I’d never think that about you.”

Luke gave Ashton a sad smile, before moving to look back at the ocean again. The elder took this as his queue to return to sit next to Luke, hoping he was finally going to open up to him.

Ashton touched Luke’s bicep softly to comfort him, due to the upset look on his face. “Hey, Luke, what’s this all about? What’s going on?”

When Luke finally looked back at him, Ashton had never seen him looking so estranged. His lips were turned down, his eyes were looking watery (can robots eyes look watery?), and he was brushing a hand through his floppy fringe with shaky fingers.

“It’s just… I don’t deserve to be here or be alive. I’m not a human. Why am I trying to be a human? I’m a robot. An _it_. I don’t deserve a name. I’m disgusting, Ashton.”

Shaking his head, Ashton felt his heart break in his chest at seeing the man he _loved_ talking about himself like that. He now felt like he understood though, knew exactly what had sparked Luke’s detached mood.

“Is this because of what those officers said? You know that’s not true, Luke. None of what they said was-“

“But it was! I don’t deserve to talk to you, I don’t deserve to be here with you now, and I definitely don’t deserve even the slightest bit of your attention. God, I ignored you to push you away from me, and I’m sorry, but I had to do it. I thought if I ignored you enough you’d flip at me, get mad, and leave me alone. You’d get out of this mess and go back to your family. You don’t deserve your life to be wasted over me! I can live this out alone, like the freak I am. It’s the only way I can protect you, from them and from me. You’re burdened with me here. I’m holding you down, so just cut me loose and leave. You can leave now, Ashton.”

“No, no, no!” Ashton was crying now, all kinds of emotions welling inside of him, but he didn’t hate Luke, he forgave Luke, and he just wanted him to feel better. “Shut up, fuck! You’re so wrong. How could you say those things?! You deserve all my attention and more, Luke. You deserve everything! You’re not disgusting. You’re so, so, so, so beautiful and kind and gentle. I’ve told you before you’re just as human as everyone else.”

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed and he reached out towards Ashton, but dropped his hand seemingly when he realised what he’d done. “You’re crying. Please, don’t cry. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not! You don’t understand! I can’t take hearing you say this fucked up bullshit about yourself! It’s all wrong, Luke. I _want_ to be here with you! I don’t want to leave you on your own, okay?! I’m not going to. My life certainly isn’t being wasted! The best month of my life has been the time I’ve spent with you so far, so don’t try and tell me what you think is right! You’re wrong!”

Ashton was mad, so fucking mad that Luke felt like this. Not at Luke himself, but at anyone who’d ever said a bad thing about Luke or anything that had helped him fall into this state. He blamed himself for not noticing what exactly what was wrong sooner and making it all about himself.

The blond threaded his fingers together, as he looked down at them. “Stop, Ashton. I don’t need this kind of pity. I can’t take you lying to me to make me feel better. You just… you don’t understand. I’m a humanlike robot. I’m just not real like you or any human on this godforsaken planet. I’m different. I’m never going to be the same and that makes me horrible and disgusting. I can’t do half of the things you can. Why would anyone…?”

A pained noise erupted in Ashton’s throat at Luke being insecure about himself again, and he couldn’t help it when he leapt forward and pressed his tear covered lips to Luke’s. His mouth was hard and unmoving against Luke’s, just staying still. Ashton had shut his eyes so tightly, as if he wanted to put all of his feelings into it and pass it on.

When Ashton pulled back a few seconds later, he realised he’d threaded his fingers into Luke’s hair on the back of his head, to pull him closer.

“I fucking _love_ you, Luke. None of that is true. None of it.”

The adrenaline was pumping through Ashton’s veins and fuck! He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He couldn’t believe he’d kissed Luke either. Oh God, what if Luke wanted to leave him now?

Their faces were still inches apart; Ashton could easily lean in for another kiss without much effort again. Luke was looking at him with wide blue eyes, lips slightly parted. “Which kind, Ashton?”

Ashton remembered their conversation about the difference between loving someone/something and being in love with someone. How innocent Luke was when he’d asked that night at the fireworks.

“I’m in love with you, so fucking in love with you.”

Luke blushed somehow, and glanced down, almost knocking his forehead into Ashton’s nose when his head dipped. Before Ashton could question that though, Luke had looked back up again, his hand rested on Ashton’s chest and suddenly their lips were pressed against one another’s again.

Damn, Ashton swore he’d died and gone to hell. Luke’s lips were sinful and he felt like he was committing so many crimes just by kissing him. He was engulfed in utter bliss at the fact that Luke had chosen to kiss him.

When they pulled back again, Luke’s hand moved from Ashton’s chest up to rest on his cheek. “I- I think I’m in love with you too, Ash.” (Ashton almost died when he called him Ash, and also the other part.) “You make me so happy and I want to be with you all the time. I know I’m probably biased since you’re the only person I know well, but this doesn’t feel platonic. I think you’re really adorable and sweet and I love cuddling with you and wow, kissing is great. I just, I love you.”

Sniffing, Ashton started crying again, but he was smiling so wide as Luke brushed his fingers across his cheeks to gather up his tears. Ignoring this though, the twenty-one year old leant forward just to rest his forehead against Luke’s, closing his eyes to allow himself just the sensation of pure happiness to wash over him.

Luke grasped his free hand, and entwined their fingers together, before the man had captured Ashton’s lips with his again so that they could kiss. The kiss was far less sweet than the other two, as Ashton found Luke was kissing him more hungrily and passionately by the second. Luke’s tongue suddenly was licking at Ashton’s lips, so Ashton allowed it to join his and they kissed for a while longer.

The kiss ended however when Luke’s hand gripped onto one of Ashton’s curls by his ear and tugged it slightly, causing Ashton to moan and then pull away startled.

When reality washed over him of what he’d done, he looked down embarrassed, a blush washing over his cheeks. Luke didn’t seem fazed though, as he was just smiling at Ashton softly.

Nervously giggling, Ashton glanced back up at Luke. “Your tongue is really fucking weird. What the shit is that made out of?”

The pair of them then spent the rest of the evening cuddled up under the stars, discussing many things and oh did Ashton make sure he convinced Luke against any of his insecure thoughts.

\--

The past few days were the best in Ashton’s life so far. After his confession to Luke and their various kisses, Ashton was on cloud nine. The pair of them had also decided just to jump straight in at the deep end and call each other their boyfriend; they didn’t really have all the time in the world to date and officially get to that part, but they felt like starting then was fine.

With no military sightings in the past few days, they were also able to relax a bit and the mood between them had improved a fair amount. They’d spent a lot of time making up for when Luke had ignored Ashton by cuddling on the sofa together while watching whatever was on the TV and holding each other at night.

Ashton was excited on this day, as Luke had decided to make him lunch in the kitchen they had in their hotel room. They didn’t usually get much of a kitchen, so to have one was a great benefit, leading Luke to try his hand in the culinary sphere.

Sitting on their shared bed (they’d booked a double bed in the past two hotels), Ashton was reading through the local newspaper that he’d stolen from a newsstand near the hotel. He wasn’t paying much attention to the words on the page, as he just wanted to move the few meters around the corner and into the small kitchen and see what Luke was up to.

Deciding to give in to his thoughts, he chucked the newspaper down, not caring whether he lost the place he was on, and walked over to the kitchen.

When he got there, Luke was looking confused, holding onto a frying pan in one of his hands. There was a pack of bacon on the worktop open, but nothing had been removed yet.

“You gunna pop the bacon in the pan?” Ashton’s voice bore a teasing tone, as he glanced at his boyfriend.

Luke turned to him when he heard his voice, a small smile finding its way onto his lips. “Oh hi, Ash. Yeah, I’m just scanning through instructions in my head. I want to know the full scope of what I’m doing before I really get going.”

Letting Luke do his thing, Ashton jumped up on to a small area of worktop and sat there, watching as the blond started cooking the bacon in the pan. He wasn’t the most graceful at it; Ashton watched him be as clumsy as he was when walking.

Feeling utter adoration flowing through him, the twenty-one year old jumped down and moved to Luke, before wrapping his arms around the younger’s waist. He was so glad things had worked out like this with Luke; it was everything he’d ever wanted. His face was pressed hard into Luke’s strong back as Ashton began to feel embarrassed about his thoughts and how much he loved Luke, even though the blond couldn’t hear a thing. Luke didn’t make a move to stop Ashton with what he was doing. Instead, Ashton could hear the sizzling of the bacon being moved around the pan; Luke was clearly very dedicated to his task.

Eventually, the sizzling stopped, Luke cursing when he did something wrong, although Ashton couldn’t see. The man then turned around in Ashton’s arms to face him.

Honestly, Ashton thought he couldn’t get anymore amazed by Luke, but boy was he wrong. The man’s nose was scrunched up and he had a soft pout on his lips.

“Your nose is really cute, Luke.”

Luke gave him a soft smile in response, looking rather embarrassed at Ashton’s compliment. To take that a step further, Ashton leant forward to press a kiss on the end of Luke’s nose, letting his lips linger there for a moment.

“H-hey! Don’t do that!”

Ashton giggled as Luke began swatting him lightly at his actions, although was blushing deeply, looking rather sheepish. Fuck, seeing this side of Luke was so endearing to Ashton. He was usually much more stoic and reserved, but seeing him all flushed and embarrassed was the most adorable thing.

“Awww, Lukey, come on! You’re nose is just so small and I just wanna kiss it all the time.”

Shaking his head, Luke moved his arms up so that he could rest his palms on Ashton’s cheeks, rubbing his fingers over the hazel eyed man’s ever growing stubble. That reminded Ashton that he needed to shave, although if Luke was going to do this…

“Shut up, you sap.” The blond leant down a little moving his face closer to Ashton’s. “Kiss me on the mouth instead.”

Now, Ashton would be an idiot to decline that and Luke had him wrapped around his finger, so he didn’t even bother teasing him or attempting to play hard to get first, but instead immediately kissed him, pulling their bodies flush together through his grip on Luke’s narrow waist.

Ashton liked the way they kissed, how Luke seemed to be perfect at it, even though he’d never kissed anyone before Ashton. It was always soft and loving, even when things may have gotten a bit more heated. Luke’s thumbs were rubbing over his cheekbones and he was helping him to tilt his head to make their lips mould in the best way possible.

As soon as they’d pulled back, Ashton kept their foreheads firmly rested against each other. He liked doing that, having Luke so close to him, just being able to look into his blue eyes and feel safe.

“Is my kissing okay?” Luke asked into the silence.

“Mmm, more than okay. You’re so good at it.”

Luke beamed, looking terribly proud of himself. “I look stuff up sometimes while we kiss or in the evenings while I’m resting. I have to make sure I’m doing everything okay for you, Ash.”

After pecking Luke’s lips one more time, he reminded his boyfriend about the food, which startled Luke into action, allowing Ashton to step back and just watch.

The bacon was shoved into a slice of bread that Luke had buttered faster than Ashton had ever seen anyone butter anything before. It was then put on a plate, before Luke shuffled Ashton into the living room so they could both sit on the sofa.

There was excitement being blatantly obvious in Luke’s eyes and the grin on his lips. He was practically bouncing in his seat when he sat down and Ashton was pretty sure he gave him the worse heart eyes ever.

“Okay! I made you a bacon sandwich! I hope you like it, Ash!”

Ashton was handed the plate and he brought it up to his lips to take a bite, pretty excited too. He took a large bite into it and kind of regretted doing so once the taste hit his mouth. It wasn’t bad per say, but there were copious amounts of butter on the bread and the bacon tasted a little undercooked. (It was slightly cold too but Ashton could take fault for that, since he ambushed Luke in the kitchen.)

Overall, it was bearable and definitely wasn’t the worst thing Ashton had ever eaten, so he ate the whole thing without complaint, Luke watching him with a huge smile on his face.

“That was really good for your first item of food made, sweetheart.” (Fuck, where had that come from?) “I mean you could improve a little, but I’m really proud of you.”

Luke practically jumped on him (luckily, Ashton had placed the plate on the floor while he was speaking), wrapping his arms around Ashton and nuzzling into his neck.

“Thank you! I’m glad you liked it! I will try harder next time, I promise.”

When Luke pulled back, Ashton felt like he’d melted into a puddle on the floor. He was so gone for this man.

Ashton was about to say something in response, but Luke had blushed (seriously, Ashton needs to ask him how he can do that) and looked down at his lap.

“Did you call me ‘sweetheart’?”

Coughing to clear his now dry throat, Ashton felt his cheeks heat up to match Luke’s. “Uh, yeah, I did. Is- is that okay? I can stop if-“

Luke’s face snapped up to face Ashton so fast, he was surprised the blond didn’t get whiplash. “No! I mean, no. I, uh, I kinda like it.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Ashton had to test it on his lips again and God, did he like calling Luke that.

To seal the deal, he leant in and pressed his lips to Luke’s nose, because he did really love his nose. Along with that, he brought his hand up to Luke’s floppy hair and just ran his fingers gently through that. He was so happy.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, I swear to God, Luke.”

\--

“You can hold my hand if you want to, Ash. I honestly don’t mind.”

At Luke’s words, Ashton became hideously aware of the fact he’d been staring at Luke’s hand swinging in between them as they walked. He probably looked really creepy by doing that and was kind of glad Luke picked up on his cues.

Ashton placed his hand into Luke’s outstretched one, linking their fingers. He couldn’t stop himself from blushing, and he looked bashfully at Luke with a smile once that had happened.

It had been a week since the pair had started dating and one night when they arrived at their next hotel, Ashton had vowed to take Luke out on a date. It would be one night where they could go out and act like normal people, albeit they’d both be on their guard all night.

For their first stop, Ashton had decided to take Luke to the small aquarium that was in the town area. He felt like it would be something that Luke would be fascinated by and Ashton really wanted him to experience every part of the world as soon as possible, just in case their situation became expired (Ashton didn’t want to think about it).

As they walked up to the entrance, Ashton gently tugged his boyfriend along a little faster, feeling the excitement himself. “I really think you’re going to love this, sweetheart.”

Soon, they’d paid for some tickets and were in the main area and Ashton watched as Luke’s eyes widened. The blond was looking around the place frantically, clearly trying to decide which place to go first. Ashton decided for him, however, and dragged him over to the seahorse tank that was closest to the place they’d entered.

Luke’s nose was practically pressed against the glass of the tank when they arrived there, and his hand let go of Ashton’s in favour of pressing his hand to it as well. “Wow, these are so pretty!”

“Did you know that the male seahorses are the ones that get pregnant rather than the females?”

“I did, because I just looked up a lot of data on seahorses. They seem like really great sea life, Ashton.”

They continued walking through the aquarium from there. Luke ending up giving Ashton a ton of facts rather than the elder doing it like he’d attempted, but Ashton didn’t mind; he liked Luke talking excitedly about everything. It made him feel warm inside.

When they reached a point where the workers were allowing people to touch the manta rays, Luke had run over there before Ashton could even see if he wanted to go there; it answered his question though.

The blond was so enticed when he ran his finger over the back of one when it floated past and Ashton was so glad Luke was programmed with the sense of touch, so he could get experiences like this.

It didn’t take them much longer after that to exit the aquarium and the next stop on Ashton’s list was a small beach restaurant where they could sit outside. He knew it may have been a little risky to sit outside in plain sight, but it was rather dark out. Also, Luke was wearing Ashton’s hoodie that he’d lent him the night they went to the fireworks, so that helped them be incognito.

Once they’d arrived, they were shown to a table outside and luckily, it wasn’t an overly fancy restaurant, so they could get away with their dressed down attire. Luke didn’t really understand what was going on when a waiter came over to see what drink they’d like; he’d never been to a proper establishment like this.

Knowing Luke had no need to eat or drink, Ashton just ordered two of what he liked, so the staff didn’t get suspicious of one of them not eating and drinking.

“Ashton, this place is quite weird. Do you humans eat at places like this a lot?”

“No, no, this is like somewhere people go for special occasions. I’ve not been to a restaurant like this in a long time. While I was at university, I couldn’t afford the bill with my living costs and also I put a lot of money into paying for robotics equipment. Now, though, I hack into people’s bank accounts so we can stay in cheap motels and I can eat a bunch of crappy food.” His tone strayed to one more filled with teasing towards the end of his speech.

Luke smiled at him for a moment, before changing his look to being rather quizzical. “But why did you bring me here if you know I can’t eat or drink?”

Blushing, Ashton began to explain. “I didn’t, uh, obviously bring you here for the food, but it’s more for the atmosphere. There’s just something so romantic about being in this kind of setting and I kind of vowed to myself when I was a kid that I’d bring someone I loved a lot to a fancy restaurant one day. I’ve never been on a date like this before; I was always too reserved with my feelings, but with you… I just can’t hold anything back, knowing that my time with you could just be cut short if the military finds us.”

“That’s lovely, Ashton. I am glad you decided to share this experience with me even if you’ll be the only one eating. I think it’s really nice.”

After that embarrassing moment for Ashton, the pair continued to chat, while Ashton drank both of the drinks he’d ordered: two Cokes. He didn’t want to have any alcohol, just in case.

When the waiter came over to get food orders, Ashton noticed Luke’s lack of knowledge of social cues. He was being a bit weird and eyeing up the waiter as he took Ashton’s order.

The waiter had turned to Luke after writing down Ashton’s order of a chicken salad. “And what would you like?”

Luke’s eyes narrowed and Ashton began to worry. “Hmm, I don’t know. What would _you_ like?”

Ashton knew this was time to jump in. “He’ll have the same as me. Thanks.”

The waiter turned back to Ashton and gave him a small smile before glancing at Luke weirdly. He then left and the elder turned to his boyfriend a frantic expression on his face.

“What the fuck was that, Luke?!” Ashton had decided to stage whisper. “You don’t just say that, jeez.”

Luke folded his arms across his chest and looked away dramatically. “I didn’t know what to say or how to act, plus he was paying too much attention to you.”

“Well you definitely don’t… hey, wait, are you jealous?”

God, Ashton shouldn’t have laughed, he really shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. Luke’s silence only confirmed his point and if it wasn’t the weirdest thing ever.

“Christ, Luke, he was literally asking me what I wanted to eat. It wasn’t like he was full out flirting with me in front of you. You have nothing to be jealous about.” Ashton looked to Luke, who only looked rather sad, and geez. Maybe Ashton shouldn’t have laughed. “Hey, it’s okay, sweetheart. You’re the only one that can date me. I love you.”

Really quickly, Luke’s hand shot out and landed on top of one of Ashton’s that was resting on the table top. “I’m sorry, Ash. I’ve just never felt like that before and I got overwhelmed by it. I know I overreacted. I love you too.”

The twenty-one year old smiled bashfully, before turning his palm over so he could lift Luke’s hand up to his lips. He then placed a soft kiss on his knuckles, before placing his hand back down.

The rest of the dinner went rather smoothly. Ashton ate both of the salads he’d ordered without any difficulty, and at some point, Luke had wrestled the fork out of Ashton’s hand and was feeding the man himself, while they both blushed and giggled a little.

The waiter eventually brought over the bill, along with a few mints on the tray. Before he left however, he told the pair how cute he thought their whole feeding thing was, leaving Ashton to blush. Luke, however, was far less shameful about the whole thing.

“Thank you! I love my boyfriend a lot and I will make sure everyone knows it!”

Ashton smacked him, as they stood up, leaving the cash on the plate along with a small tip. “Luke! Shut up!”

Eventually, they left the area, heading back to their hotel as Ashton hadn’t planned any more to do that evening. On the way however, a few police officers began heading in their direction, so Ashton dragged Luke into a small alley nearby to blend in.

When Ashton glanced up to speak to Luke and inform him why he’d pulled them aside, he realised how close they’d become; Luke was pressed up against his chest and towered over him by a few inches, leaving Ashton to look up to have to meet his eyes.

Luke noticed their close proximity too, and reached up to touch Ashton’s cheek like he usually did. This left Ashton to grip at his boyfriend’s waist.

“If you wanted to kiss me in secret, Ash, all you had to do was ask.”

God fucking dammit. Curse Luke and his smooth talking tongue and fuck where did it even come from? Ashton was going to ban him from watching TV or using the internet in that mind of his, because he was about to melt into a pile of runny flesh and blood on the floor. It was slightly weird though, like Luke was suddenly acting out of character.

“Fuck, Luke, be quiet. There’s police around. We need to stay covert.”

“Oh, I know a way to do that.”

Suddenly, Luke was leaning in and he’d pressed his lips to Ashton’s. The golden haired man was like putty in his hands, moulding to everything he did. Luke’s idea of silence didn’t last very long however, as the blond had tugged on Ashton’s hair again, causing the latter to groan.

Ashton pulled back startled that he’d gone and done that again. “Fuck! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I just… You’re really… Sorry.”

Luke looked just as embarrassed as Ashton felt. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry, Ashton. Was that too weird? I thought you may like it if I tried to be all smooth.”

“No, no… I don’t know. I just expected you to be more like… I don’t know… you? I guess. You know, your awkward, sweet self. Not that there was anything wrong with that! Heh. I guess I don’t like being overly submissive.”

“Oh, then it is my mistake, Ashton. I will act as I normally do and not use shitty pick up lines from the TV when I watch it in my head while you’re asleep.”

Ashton giggled and kissed Luke again, letting their lips linger for just a moment. “Stop being so cute.”

After a while of bathing in the happiness they felt just being that close to each other, Ashton led the way out of the alley back into the street. They then noticed that there seemed to be a lot of officers around, due to their being some form of protest going on outside a building.

That led to them running in and out of alleyways from the cops, kissing each other when they ended up pressed close together in doorways, finding a thrill out of their antics.

It was a state of utter bliss.

\--

Five days after their first date, the pair of men had been on a few more too. Albeit, they wouldn’t refer to them as dates, it was just them going to and from places as they used to, but they’d had a lot of fun in passing.

One day, they’d visited a local museum in the town they were staying in and Ashton swore the security guards there recognised them, as they were giving them suspicious looks and talking on their walkie-talkies. That led to Ashton dragging his boyfriend out of there before their time needed to be up for fear of being found out.

The other few days were spent visiting small tourist spots whenever they had the time and the amount of cover necessary; night time visits were popular among them. Most of the time though was dedicated to chilling out in their hotel/motel room or travelling by either stolen vehicle or train.

As much as Ashton loved Luke, he was really beginning to tire of this kind of lifestyle. It had been forty-one days since that fateful day at his parents’ lab, leading to him and Luke being forced to flee. Things weren’t looking like they’d ever be able to relax and not worry about being caught; the government weren’t about to let a “rogue” robot go loose.

Ashton thought that maybe it was time he mentioned possibly fleeing the country to Luke. Although Ashton wanted to stay in Australia, so that he could go and see his family every once in a while and keep down with his roots, he couldn’t see them making it much longer there without being caught. Their best chances were to get fake passports and leave for somewhere else, where the government couldn’t touch them.

That being said, even if they did leave, other governments would probably try and track them down if they knew Luke was in their airspace. The whole world was seemingly in agreement about the “only robots for military purposes and under this coding” law, so all of them would view Luke as a threat and want him out.

The twenty-one year old thought about voicing that to Luke at their current moment in time. They were in their motel room. Luke was lying across the sofa watching some game show on the TV, while his head was pressed into Ashton’s lap.

Before Ashton could decide whether or not he wanted to go through with talking to Luke, his boyfriend made his mind up for him by muting the TV and sitting up straight.

On seeing the pensive look on Luke’s face, Ashton began to worry. “Hey, Luke. What’s wrong?”

“I’m always tuned in on military radio just in case something of importance comes up to do with us. Sometimes they say things and I don’t bother passing on the information, because they’re usually just saying ‘oh we haven’t found the robot or Irwin,’ so there’s not much point.” Luke paused. “I have code words that make the radio signal amplify in my head if they’re mentioned and this seems pretty big.”

Luke went silent again and closed his eyes, and Ashton wondered what was being said. It really must be important if Luke was spending this much time being focused on the words being said, or decoding any codes being used.

Finally, the blond looked up. “There were two men chatting to each other. One of them said something about your parents. I think they’re alive, Ashton. They were saying that they had been torturing them, trying to get information about me and you out of them but they wouldn’t budge.”

Ashton’s heart leaped into his throat. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved that his parents were more than likely alive or sad at the fact they had been tortured to find out where they were. The shots they’d both received when Luke dragged Ashton away from the lab that day mustn’t have been fatal, like Ashton had thought.

“What else, sweetheart?”

Luke pondered on it for a second. “There was more chatter about them still not knowing where we are and then the second man said something about taking your parents back to the lab and forcing them to show the military how they’d made me as if it would help them to track me, and you, down. Looks like their mole didn’t have that much information.”

“Yeah, my parents probably kept even a small bit of your process secret, even though they wholeheartedly trusted their team.”

The two of them sat in silence after that for a moment. All that was running through Ashton’s mind was that he needed to save his parents. He couldn’t let them suffer anymore at the hands of the government, who’d undoubtedly been torturing them every day for the past forty-one days.

“We have to go there, Luke. We can’t stay here and do nothing. We’ve infiltrated a guarded military base before with hardly any consequences, so I’m pretty sure we can get into a lab with like three times less security, since I highly doubt many officers will take my parents there.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Luke didn’t seem entirely convinced. “As much as I want to help your parents, Ashton, what if we get caught? We know the military have that remote they can use to shut me down now. What if they use that? I’ll be of no help and it’ll only put you in danger. I don’t want _you_ in danger.”

Seeing the sad expression on Luke’s face, Ashton pressed his palm to his boyfriend’s cheek, lightly brushing his hand across the scruff there. “Hey, sweetheart, I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine too. I highly doubt they’ll have a remote with them, since it seems like it’s going to be a small operation. If they do, I’ll protect you. I’m not afraid to kill anymore if I have to.”

That seemed to make Luke soften, and the man nodded. “Okay, we’ll go, but we’re leaving as soon as anything goes the opposite of our way. The men were talking about them going there the day after tomorrow, so we can rest up before we even think about going. I hope we can save your parents, Ash.”

\--

The mood the next evening was rather sombre. For the whole day, Ashton had allowed Luke to start formulating a plan of infiltration to the lab. He’d joined in, giving his own suggestions on the places within the lab he’d been before and anywhere that cover could be taken.

As he knew he’d likely need it, the twenty-one year old had also taken out his handgun to check the ammo left in his magazine. He had thirteen bullets, which he felt may not be enough to cover their trip, but Ashton was hopeful that combat would not be needed. To add to Ashton’s thirteen, Luke had eight bullets left.

Their overall plan was to leave early in the morning to drive to the lab and to sneak in if possible. If they arrived there before the military, they planned to enter and hide somewhere, allowing them to later ambush the officers and save Ashton’s parents. The number of casualties weren’t something they were going to consciously measure or try to keep low; all Ashton and Luke cared about was saving the Irwins.

After the plans had been made, Ashton had eaten some food for dinner, and then began to relax and watch TV. He was sitting on the double bed with Luke pressed up beside him, and neither of them seemed to dare to speak to one another.

Ashton didn’t know why this was. He wondered if maybe the possibility of dying was now looming over them more irritatingly, especially now as they had discussed their romantic feelings for one another and decided to pursue a relationship. Maybe that had caused a sudden increase of the reluctance to die.

Hell, if Ashton was going to die in that lab, he would do so in a heartbeat if it meant Luke and his parents would be safe. His life wasn’t worth anything compared to any of theirs. He was a murderer and a coward who could barely even face up to his feelings for Luke and didn’t stay to fight when the lab was raided in the first place. He could’ve done something, but instead he barely put up a fight and let Luke drag him away.

Deciding to push those thoughts to the back of his mind for the moment, Ashton focused back on the TV, although he had no idea what was going on there. Luke, though, seemed to be engrossed in it, or was simply zoned out and happened to be looking at the TV when that took place.

It turned out that Luke had zoned out, as he turned to Ashton with a pensive look on his face. “Ash, I know we discussed this a little bit a couple of weeks ago, but what does sexual attraction feel like? I have been wondering ever since we chatted about it.”

At Luke’s words, Ashton felt a little taken aback. He struggled to verbalise it back then to describe love to Luke, but to describe sexual attraction may prove just as hard.

Moving his gaze from Luke, as he felt rather embarrassed, Ashton tried to form the words. “Well, when you find someone really attractive, you may want to have sex with them. I-I don’t know… Being in someone’s presence that you feel sexually attracted to makes you feel all hot and the desire to just have sex with them or to touch them in an intimate way washes over you.” Ashton’s cheeks were a dark shade of red by this point. “I don’t know, Luke. This is the best that I can explain.”

If that wasn’t one of the most embarrassing things Ashton ever had to do then he’d be wrong. He couldn’t bear to look Luke in the eye. For one, what he just said was cringy and secondly, Ashton was obviously very much sexually attracted to Luke, which was quite wrong of him in many ways.

Luke appeared to mull over Ashton’s words for a minute when Ashton risked a glance at the blond, before he smiled and scooted closer to Ashton, confusing the elder.

“If that’s what sexual attraction is then I think I can feel that with you, Ash. Well, I’m pretty sure I can now you’ve explained it. I believe that makes me demisexual, since I only began to feel for you in this way once we’d become much closer and had started our romantic relationship.”

“Oh…” Ashton was honestly lost for words as he stared at Luke with wide eyes. He was happy though, Luke had figured himself out, but this all came to a bit of a shock to him.

Suddenly, Luke was smiling even wider at him and leaning forward until his lips came into contact with Ashton’s. God, if Ashton didn’t melt like butter in a hot pan. He kissed Luke back with a new ignited passion brought on by Luke’s previous words. It just made him feel warm all over to know Luke reciprocated his sexual feelings, although it wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t; Ashton would respect Luke’s sexuality.

They pulled away almost breathless, but Ashton kept Luke close by pressing a soft kiss to his nose, before leaning their foreheads together.

“Luke, fuck, I know this may be too soon, so feel free to say no, but… shit, I’d really like to have sex with you. Y-you know we may die tomorrow…” He paused when Luke gave him a sharp look. “I mean I hope we don’t, but we could be walking into a trap or we may not be able to sneak in or we just die trying to save my parents. I guess this is really clichéd but I’d like to have sex with you because I don’t know if there’s going to be another time.”

Ashton watched as Luke remained silent, but his mouth was opening and closing a little, as though he was trying to find the right words to say. His hesitation caused Ashton to backtrack.

“Fuck, I totally just gave the ‘Last Night On Earth’ speech. I’m sorry! You can say no! We can just kiss or cuddle or just go to bed that’s perfectly okay! Ha, ha, don’t worry about it.”

When Luke let out a small giggle, Ashton couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows. Did he seriously find humour in Ashton’s embarrassment? Great.

“I’ll have sex with you, Ash.” Ashton froze at those words. “But I don’t really know what I’m doing. I mean I will look it up quickly.”

The moment felt so awkward to Ashton, but at the same time it was really sweet how Luke was trying his hardest to be ready to do this and he was as eager as Ashton was.

Luke didn’t take long. “Ok, I scanned many videos. I will follow your lead, Ash.”

A tug of jealousy at the thought of Luke watching porn or something of a similar domain appeared within Ashton and it fuelled him to lean forward and kiss Luke again. This time much harder, knocking the blond down onto his back as he leaned over him.

Their lips parted for a moment when that happened, leading Ashton to announce something. “You can tell me to stop any time you want, okay? Don’t be afraid to. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Same goes for you, Ash, but I’m all in for this. I will ensure I say anything if I need to.”

Once that was out of the way, Ashton tugged his shirt off and threw it onto the ground. While he was doing that, Luke had turned off the TV that was still on and pulled off his own shirt too.

Even though Luke’s pale torso was littered in small holes and other scuffs, Ashton thought he was so beautiful. The elder gently rested his hands on top of Luke’s collarbones and slowly ran his fingers down his chest.

Luke’s hands came up to grasp at Ashton’s waist as the man straddled over him, brushing his hands up and down his sides. The contact made Ashton sigh in utter bliss; he honestly couldn’t believe this was all happening.

Things progressed slowly from there, as each man wanted to take in every part of the other with desperate intrigue. Kisses were being left on every inch of skin the other could reach, as they took turns in their body worship.

Once they were both left in only their boxers, Luke paused proceedings by grasping Ashton’s hand that was about to pull down his own boxers. Ashton immediately stopped, knowing that if this was Luke’s limit, he’d be perfectly okay with that.

“Um, what do we do now, Ash? I mean, I saw in the videos that one man’s penis has to-“

“Ha, ha! Okay, Luke. Yes, that can happen.” The blush on Ashton’s cheeks was undeniable. “You can put your… you know… in my… yeah.”

Luke frowned. “But won’t that be painful? Surely, we should do it the other way around. After all, I have a higher pain tolerance than you do.”

“No, I’m used to it. Plus, could your ass even stretch to accommodate?” Ashton shook his head. “Wait, what are we even saying? We’re having a really intimate moment and here we are having a weird discussion. Okay, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to get going again, before I become horrifically turned off.”

When Luke nodded, Ashton kissed him, opened mouthed, while his hand went up to run down his chest. Luke’s hand gripped in Ashton’s hair and when he tugged this time, Ashton wasn’t that afraid to let out a moan.

“Fuck, Luke. C-can you keep doing that? I mean tugging my hair? Just not too hard, but a little bit is nice, really nice.”

The twenty-one year old found pleasure in Luke tugging his hair while their moment carried on and they were both completely naked, Ashton hovering over Luke with his fingers causing the slight necessary pain they needed to continue.

Soon, they were tightly pressed against one another, Ashton on top of Luke, as the blond lay under him, one hand in Ashton’s hair, the other on his hip.

An overwhelming feeling washed over Ashton and brushed over every inch of his skin, while he was glancing down at Luke below him, leading the blond in their intimacy. He honestly felt like he was about to cry, but utterly refused to, as he knew Luke would probably feel like Ashton wasn’t enjoying it or that he was in pain.

When Luke yanked on one of his curls again and Ashton moved to hit the most pleasurable spot inside himself, he couldn’t help but start to speak. “I-I’m so, so – _fuck_ – glad that we’re doing this, sweetheart. I-I love you. Hope I’m making you feel good, because fuck knows I’m feeling so fucking good right now. Proud of you.”

Luke was smiling up at him sweetly through hooded eyelids, looking like he was so far into a pit of pleasure. One of his hands moved to touch Ashton where he needed him. “I-I love you too, Ash. Glad I can experience this and feel it. You feel so nice. Really hope we can do this again.”

Their time together in that way was over in a little while. The elder was slightly shocked by Luke’s ability to orgasm and took great pleasure in himself when the blond finished first, knowing he’d treated Luke well. Ashton was brought over the edge by Luke’s touch and fuck, how was he already an expert when this was his first time? (Jesus shit, Ashton took his virginity.)

After Luke had briefly washed off his hand and had wiped the sweat from Ashton’s body, the two of them settled down in bed together. Ashton gripped onto Luke tightly, winding his arms around his love’s waist.

“So, how was it?” It was inevitable that Ashton needed to ask this question.

“I enjoyed it very much. Thank you, Ash.”

A silence overcame them for a moment. Ashton was thinking up what to say, knowing that tonight may be their last. He hated to think that way, especially as it’d been in the back of his mind for the whole time he and Luke had been on the run, but tonight was exceptionally bad.

Luke turned around in Ashton’s arms and put his own around his boyfriend, causing their chests to be pressed against each other; he held him tighter. “No harm is coming your way tomorrow. I swear it, Ash. I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you. I love you.”

Ashton mulled over Luke’s words and despite Luke’s vow to protect him, Ashton knew he’d make sure that Luke was safe over his own safety. He didn’t voice this however, settling for “I love you too,” before pressing his head into Luke’s chest.

He just wished this night wouldn’t be his or Luke’s last.

\--

When Ashton woke up the next morning, he was still encased in Luke’s arms. They’d moved slightly in their sleep, or for Luke, his equivalent of sleep, so that now Ashton’s head was rested on top of Luke’s chest and he had one leg thrown in-between the taller blond’s.

Luke didn’t stir when Ashton moved himself up to kneel, the elder now looking down on his boyfriend with a soft smile on his lips. Ashton figured Luke must’ve relaxed his systems or was doing some hefty research in that brain of his.

Since Ashton felt like he may stay in bed the whole day if he didn’t get up, the twenty-one year old prised himself out of Luke’s embrace and clambered down onto the floor beside the bed. He was still naked, having not bothered to put any clothes back on after the previous night’s shenanigans. His body was a little sore from all of that as well, but he hoped a quick, hot shower would help his case.

Leaving Luke to relax a bit, Ashton took a quick shower, drying his hair off with a towel after exiting, before he left the bathroom and went back to the main area. Luke was awake by the time he returned and the blond was in the middle of putting his clothes on.

Trying to push out the fear in his heart at the day’s plans, Ashton wrapped his arms around Luke’s waist from behind, before the other could place his shirt on. With his head between Luke’s shoulder blades, Ashton dwelled in the feeling of Luke’s skin and his muscles rolling beneath it.

“Mornin’, Ash.” Luke’s hand reached to rest over Ashton’s, which were folded over each other.

Moving from being pressed against Luke’s back, Ashton wandered over to the end of the bed where his clothes had been flung. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

The mood was rather sombre in the room, despite it being an underlying tone. Ashton was honestly feeling rather scared about the mission they were going to be undertaking. He couldn’t speak for Luke, but the thought of all the possibilities of how it could go down was making his head hurt. This wasn’t a choice based game where he could go back and restart it if the outcome was something he didn’t like. The consequences were undoable.

Once they were both ready and they’d packed their things up (they were going to move to a new hotel once their deed was done), Ashton turned to look at Luke, who was already looking back at him. The blond appeared rather cuddly today, and Ashton wished he could stay here and just snuggle up with his boyfriend; his parents were more important at this exact time though.

The younger man seemed extremely enticing to Ashton, though. He had Ashton’s old hoodie on, which he’d never really gotten back since Luke enjoyed wearing it so much, and the blond’s hair was down as it was most days, dropping over his forehead. Add that to Luke’s scruff, which - damn him being a robot - was a permanent feature on his face, unless he decided to remove it, and Ashton was practically a puddle of emotion on the floor. Luke’s hair didn’t grow either, so his facial hair remained perfect stubble. Fuck Luke.

Ashton decided to throw his shame out of the window that was linked to those previous thoughts. “Fucking hell, Luke, you’re so hot.”

The blond blushed, and Ashton still needed to ask how he did that, and came closer to Ashton, bundling the smaller man in his arms. “Shut up.”

Time froze for a few minutes as they held each other. As much as they needed to get to the lab, they weren’t in that much of a rush if the radio broadcast they heard was anything to go by. The military probably weren’t even there yet; it was rather early morning.

Just as Ashton was fully feeling himself relax, Luke spoke his name with a rather blunt, serious tone, which caused the hazel eyed man to lean back in Luke’s embrace to see what was going on.

“I know I said this last night, but I will protect you. No matter what happens, I am going to protect you. Nobody is going to hurt you and if they do, I will kill them.” Luke paused, staring into Ashton’s eyes with a strong passion. “Back in the lab, when we first met, your father… he told me to take care of you and protect you from harm. That is what I have been doing and that is what I am going to do. On that day, I only vowed to do that because I was asked to by my creators; I could barely feel back then. But now, Ash, I want to protect you because my love for you is telling me to do that. Of course, I respect your father’s wish and would do so even without love, but I love you, and love is compelling me to be extra vigilant.”

At Luke’s words, Ashton could sense why a lot of Luke’s past actions had taken place: their escape from Ashton’s house where Luke had immediately taken a stance in front of him; that night in the garden where Luke killed every officer sent to capture them; the day they rescued Harry and Lauren and Luke refused to leave Ashton behind. Even before Ashton had to kill those two officers in the alleyway, Luke was standing in front of him, trying not to let him be in the line of fire.

“God, you’re a fucking idiot.” Ashton’s hand went to Luke’s cheek, brushing his fingers there gently. “My sweet, sweet prince…”

And fuck, Ashton wasn’t supposed to say any of that aloud, because did he just pull that out of his ass?

“Um, anyway, I vowed to protect you as well, Luke. My mum asked me to look after you and make sure you didn’t fall into the wrong hands, and here we are, about to walk into a place we know will be swarming with people that will want to hurt you. I don’t want to take you with me.” Ashton noticed Luke about to protest, so he moved his hand from his cheek to rest on his lips. “But, you’d never agree to stay behind, so I want you by my side the whole time. I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine, but if one of us is leaving there alive, it’s going to be you.”

Luke was shaking his head rather aggressively from side to side, before he smacked Ashton’s hand away from his lips. “No! What are you saying? I don’t care anymore if I get caught. If you die, my life means nothing, okay? It means nothing. You deserve to live. We’re not arguing over this.”

Deciding that he didn’t want this moment to end on a bad note, Ashton just nodded in an attempt to pacify Luke and himself.

“Fuck, Ash, please don’t ever say anything like that again. I can’t… I need you.” Luke’s voice cracked an awful lot, and Ashton was pretty sure if Luke was able to cry, he’d be crying right now. Either way, it broke his heart.

Ashton knew his own eyes were actually displaying his emotions, when a few tears fell from his eyes. “I’m sorry. Don’t be sad. I’m here.”

Luke fell into his arms again. The taller man was shaking and one of his hands threaded into Ashton’s short curls. Ashton was rubbing his hands up and down his back soothingly, while his own lip quivered and a few more tears fell.

When they pulled back, silently deciding that now was time to leave, Ashton leant in and pressed a watery kiss to Luke’s nose, letting his lips linger there for a few seconds.

“The lab it is then, sweetheart.”

\--

After driving another stolen car to a mile away from the lab, Ashton and Luke began the last trek to get to the building. They had brought all of their equipment with them, stowed away in the backpacks they were carrying. Luke had suggested leaving everything in the car, but Ashton knew he may need his laptop, in case they were swarmed by hoards of robots. His boyfriend had retaliated saying that he could just disable them, but Ashton didn’t want to risk not taking it, in case something happened to Luke and his laptop was the only option.

On the way, Luke kept Ashton informed about what was happening on the radio frequencies. The blond said that most of it was chatter about other missions the military seemed to be on, or just pointless crap that officers were saying to each other. Apparently, the mission to the lab was only mentioned once; Luke told Ashton some codeword was used that he didn’t understand.

Once they were by the outskirts of the building, the pair slowed down, easing their way over in case people had already turned up. Ashton let himself be the one to peak around the corner of the wall they were currently situated behind, taking a quick look before returning to his position. There was nobody outside.

“Looks like we beat them to it, sweetheart.” Ashton smiled softly at his boyfriend standing behind him. “Mind quickly scanning the area for robots and checking the lab CCTV, if it exists and still works?”

Luke spaced out for a minute, signalling that he was clearly at work, before he came back to reality. “CCTV is clear. I connected to the ones inside too. There are no people that I can see, and I’m not detecting any robots in the vicinity. So we should be good to head in and hide.”

The pair of them entered into the main grounds of the lab, hiding in places wherever possible; it wasn’t bad to be too safe. Ashton was honestly feeling a bit sick as their trek continued. He couldn’t help but feel constantly reminded of the events that took place here, even if he now knew his parents were more than likely alive. The pure terror that he now associated the building with wasn’t good.

Reaching a side entrance near the front, Ashton was about to just barge in, when Luke gently moved him out of the way, heading inside first himself. The twenty-one year old followed with a fond roll of his eyes, shutting the door behind him.

Once he was fully inside the area they’d entered, he took in the state of the building as a whole. The place wasn’t looking good; the walls were stained a coppery brown in places, clearly where people had been shot when the military tackled the base. Across the floor, there were various scrunched up papers and things that seemed invaluable, such as knocked over trash from rubbish bins.

As Luke led him further into the building to look around, Ashton couldn’t help but wonder what they’d done with all the bodies of the staff members. Maybe they’d allowed for them to have a proper burial. Maybe they’d taken some of them in for questioning like they did with his parents. Maybe they’d just dragged their bodies away and burned them without giving a shit. Ashton hoped those people were treated with respect; they didn’t deserve to die.

After looking through a couple of rooms that mostly contained battered equipment or were simply recreational rooms, the couple ended up in the main lab, the place Luke was created and built with all the care in the world.

Luke stated that fact with a wistful look on his face. “This is the place I was born.”

As much as it _was_ the place Luke was born, it looked a lot like the rest of the building, less like the place it had been. It was slightly more intact than other rooms, with only some overturned equipment, but the bloodstains on the floor were a sure sign of the events that had taken place. Ashton tried his best not to vomit.

“It’s hard to believe that you’re only - what? - forty-three days old?” Ashton cringed. “You’re forty-three days old and I’m twenty-one years old. How has this happened?”

“I’m nineteen, Ash, or at least that’s how old I’m supposed to be.”

“Oh? So, you’re eternally nineteen then? Wow, it’s alright for some, ay?” Ashton couldn’t help but frown slightly.

Luke came closer to him from where he was surveying the room, grasping one of Ashton’s hands, clearly noticing his tone of voice. “Hey, my opinion of you isn’t going to change. I can age myself, change my beard and hair, and add wrinkles to my skin. That doesn’t faze me. I’m getting old with you.”

Their lips met in the middle in a brief kiss and when they pulled away, Ashton was about to start formulating a plan of action. That was cut short however, when a shot was fired in their direction, missing by a couple of inches.

Moving fast, Ashton dove behind a fallen table, Luke following behind him, as Ashton now pulled his handgun out from the back of his jeans where he’d placed it. Luke was pulling down his wrist, revealing his own gun.

Ashton whispered sharply, taking the safety off of his gun to be extra prepared. “Jesus fucking Christ! Where the hell did that come from?”

Someone yelling from the other side of the room, near where the secret exit had been that fateful day, started a motion and suddenly about seven people, including robots were rushing into the room from that entrance, another already inside. Luckily, nobody had entered the entrance near them yet, but there was no way they were exiting that way; of course the people would have backup.

Ashton spoke again, moving further down behind the fallen tables and surfaces to get to more cover. “Ok, we’re so fucked. How did this happen under our noses? How the fuck did they know we were here?”

“I don’t know, Ashton. Maybe they found away to block robots’ signals and purposely didn’t chat about it on the radio. They could’ve just ambushed really quickly if they saw us enter. I probably didn’t monitor at the time we kissed. Could’ve allowed them to get the drop on us. I’m sorry.”

The people entering the room weren’t really making any effort to shoot at them at the time being, as they were still ensuring all of them were present. They then appeared to be setting up aim with their guns, clearly knowing that the pair were pinned down.

At that moment, more robots and humans entered the room, about another eight, from the entrance Ashton and Luke had come in earlier. Now, they were definitely blocked in from both sides.

Ashton breathed out sharply. “Ok, fuck, it’s not your fault. We need to find my parents and get out of here. I say were run and gun, try to get back into the main lab area if we can, take cover behind these objects first though. We can hide in one of the rooms for a bit if we have to; try to take the people down with stealth. You think you can hack the robots now quickly, disable them?”

Luke was silent again for a few moments. “I’m trying but it’s not working. There seems to be some sort of blocker on the wave, as I suspected earlier. It’s too strong for me to disable in a minute. It’s gunna take me at least five and I’m sorry, Ash, we don’t have five minutes. Just shoot at them in sensitive places, as you would with a human.”

“Right, let’s go then. I’ll take the right of the room, you take the-“

“Ash, wait. I know you want to find your parents, but this must be a trap. We need to just leave and get to the car as soon as we can. The military must have set this up, knowing we’d be listening and wouldn’t turn this opportunity down.”

Shaking his head, Ashton couldn’t comprehend that, not now, not after they’d driven all this way, even if the thought had crossed his mind on more than one occasion. “No! I refuse to believe that! Now, go!”

Jumping up, Ashton yelled out as he fired a couple of bullets in the direction of some humans who were forming up, hitting them in non-critical places, as he dived behind a tall cabinet. Luke did the same, but with less caution, getting shot several times as he managed to shoot down two humans and a robot with three bullets.

The enemy was firing rapidly at them now with bulky guns all round, the hail of bullets causing Ashton to be cautious with his timing of firing his own. He managed to kill a robot as it tried to near him, but at the cost of three of his bullets. He was never going to get out of this; his bullet count was at a grisly five.

Ashton fired two more bullets, as he duck and ran over to the side Luke was on, which was nearer the door where they’d entered. Luke had killed another human and another robot by the time he’d reached him.

Popping out again, Ashton fired two more bullets, injuring a human but not killing her. He ducked back behind cover, knowing that he was now completely and utterly fucked.

“L-Luke, I-I can’t…”

His boyfriend came back to cover, taking off his bag and smiling sadly at the utter distressed look that had now adorned itself on Ashton’s face. One of Luke’s hands came to rest on Ashton’s cheek, the bullet fire still raining down around them.

“It’s okay, Ash. I love you.”

Before Ashton could register what was going on, Luke’s hand moved to his chin and he leant forward, kissing him hard on the mouth, before he was gone. Luke had walked straight out into the line of fire.

Luke’s voice was loud, and Ashton could hear the sounds of his shots specifically, it sounding different from that of a machine gun. “Hey! Come shoot me, you fuckers!”

Oh, fuck no. Ashton knew exactly what Luke was doing. He wasn’t going to have it at all. He wasn’t letting Luke sacrifice himself so Ashton could leave. He wouldn’t do that to him. He swore to it.

When seemingly noticing Ashton hadn’t gone anywhere, Luke turned his body towards where Ashton was still hiding, shooting his last bullet at a robot as he did so. “Ash, what the fuck are you doing? Don’t just stand there! Please, go.”

“No! I can’t! I’m not leaving you.”

The enemy seemed to notice Luke’s lack of bullets, and Ashton’s too for that matter, and the shooting died down. The twenty-one year old peaked his head around the side of his cover just to notice one of the men pull out a remote and press a button. Ashton cried out to Luke when he realised this must be another of those robot remotes. Luke fell to the ground.

“You can come out, Ashton. We won’t shoot you. Come out and place your gun on the ground though.”

After placing his backpack beside Luke’s and breathing hard, Ashton walked out to find nine remaining people: three humans were huddled together binding their wounds, the two other humans alive were both pointing guns at him (one being the person who pressed the remote), lastly four robots were in various positions too, all aiming guns at him. It was weird that they hadn’t been affected by the remote’s range. Maybe someone had perfected the coding.

He stopped in front of Luke’s body, where it was crumpled up on the ground, dropping his gun just a foot in front of himself. Ashton had to stop from turning around and caring for Luke. He kept repeating that Luke would be okay in his head.

“Hello, Ashton. I’ve been waiting to have a chance to meet you.” The man moved the remote around in his hands as he spoke. “Your parents talked about you a lot. Shame I never got to meet you on those rare occasions you popped by.”

Ashton’s eyes widened as he realised who this man was. It was the mole, the traitor from his parents’ team. He was the one who created the remote, the one who caused his parents to suffer. He was short and muscular with dark skin and dark hair to match.

“You fucking asshole. Where are my parents? What have you done?”

The man laughed, ignoring his question, before waving the remote out in front of him. “Do you like my new toy? I finally perfected it, isolated Robot Boy over here’s code and set it so it only targets it. Albeit, it still only works at short range, but hey, I’m only going to need it today.”

The twenty-one year old practically growled at his words. “If you’ve hurt him, I swear to God…”

“Oh, please. You’re out of ammo, Robot is down. You clearly don’t have backup. Even if you do, I can get more people here in seconds, so don’t try me.”

Ashton remained silent then, deciding to try and make a plan of action in his head, but he’d pulled a short straw; there was no way they were getting out of this. He’d failed his parents, he’d failed Luke, and he’d failed himself.

The man smirked at Ashton’s silence. “Anyway, you’re probably wondering who exactly I am. I mean, you’ve surely got the gist from my words earlier, but I want you to know my name before you die or go to prison for the rest of your life. My name is Ian Fielding and well, I ended up on your parents’ team to spy on them. The government had picked up interest on them back when they left university. They were bright and loving, so people only interpreted that as they were going to break the rules to further their science. I was told to infiltrate their circle, until they trusted me. When they asked me to be on their secret team, of course I said yes. It helped me along knowing the government were giving me a hefty sum.

“So there I was, a tech in the creation of the robot. I passed on the information of how it was going, until the day the robot was finished. The government wanted it to be done, to see for themselves if there were any benefits they could take from it. So they stormed the lab, killed everyone, but you and that robot got away. That was proof enough for the government that there were no benefits and the thing needed to be killed.”

All Ashton was seeing was red. “Luke’s not a thing. He’s more human than you are, you slimy little bastard. I hope you rot in hell. Actually, is there a place worse than hell? Because you deserve the worst. I’m going to kill you.”

Fielding began laughing again. Ashton wished he would stop. The dark haired man in front of him thought that he’d won. He was content that he’d done everything to win.

“Oh, you’re something.” Fielding pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. “Let’s load the robot back up again for a bit. See if it’s got anything interesting to say.”

A secret button hidden on the underside was pressed on the remote (Ashton assumed that was a new feature or the first time he’d tried to reset Luke with the remote, he’d stupidly missed it) and Luke made a groaning noise from behind him.

Ashton went to turn and crouch down and see if he was okay, but one of the robots that was pointing a gun fired a warning shot into the air to stop him from turning around.

The shot, however, got Luke back into action rather quickly, as Ashton heard him jump to his feet, before he was soon about to stand in front of Ashton. The elder pushed him back though, staying in front of his boyfriend protectively, refusing to move.

“Ash…” Luke’s voice was soft. Ashton ignored him.

Fielding cocked his gun in the hand that held it, exaggerating his movements. “No funny business, Robot. One wrong move and I won’t hesitate to kill you both.”

Ignoring his words, Ashton felt Luke’s hand brush against his, where it was down by his side. The hazel eyed man took this as an attempt to get Ashton to move behind Luke, but he wasn’t going to give him. Luke had protected him, now he was going to protect Luke.

That movement didn’t go unnoticed by Fielding or his goons. “Wow, that was the tenderest touch I’ve seen in a while. Almost as tender as that kiss you shared earlier. I honestly can’t believe it. A human dating a robot? That is just _disgusting_. Are its emotions even real? Can it even feel love? Ashton, you’re just kidding yourself with this one. How gross.”

The anger that had manifested itself in Ashton’s mind was growing more rapidly by the second. The comments towards Luke being a robot in the beginning had been bad enough, but now he was going even further away from the line he’d already crossed. How _dare_ he.

“Fuck you! Luke is perfectly capable of all of that! He’s a human. I don’t give a fuck what you think. Maybe you’d understand more if you took your fucking head out of your arse and deflated that ego of yours; it’s about to pop.”

His words seemed to have no effect on the man several meters in front of him. He remained firm, the smirk still plastered on his cheeks.

When he didn’t reply, Ashton continued on to a new topic. “Anyway, you shithead, earlier I asked you about my parents and you ignored me. So answer me now: where the fuck are they?”

Every single human on the opposite side of the room to Ashton began to laugh, Fielding especially hard. Luke touched Ashton’s hand again.

“They’re dead, Ashton. Christ, you would’ve thought you’d got that by now. They died forty-three days ago, right here.” Fielding signalled to the ground under him. “We figured you may be listening to our radio broadcasts; you seem to have brains like that. So we waited a while to strike, assemble all that we needed. The other day, we started having talks about your parents and this lab in hopes you’d turn up sometime, and well… Of course you did. You played right into our hands.”

Tears of frustration ran down Ashton’s cheeks as all the pent up anger inside himself finally burst into colour. He screamed out and went to lunge forward, his arms outstretched in front of him. In his mind, there were vivid images of him strangling the asshole to death, so that was what he was going to do. He wanted to kill him with his bare hands.

He didn’t get anywhere though, as Luke grabbed his waist and pulled him back, whispering for him to calm down in his ear. Ashton couldn’t believe Luke was stopping him. Why would Luke stop him? Fielding needed to die.

That’s when Ashton remembered his backup plan: his gun. When firing earlier, Ashton had made the conscious decision to save a bullet and, although shooting Fielding in the head hadn’t been the reason he’d saved it, he damn right didn’t care if he was wasting his last escape plan.

With all the adrenaline in his body, Ashton managed to knock Luke back by taking him off guard. After jumping to the floor and grabbing his gun, he quickly aimed it upwards towards Fielding, firing the bullet with no hesitation. Luckily, in that time, nobody had fired at Ashton; they were probably waiting for orders though.

In Ashton’s rage, he’d failed to fire it high enough, but with Fielding’s reaction to the bullet, it had hit the remote in his left hand and travelled through Fielding’s hand.

“Holy fucking hell! You little shit!” Fielding’s gun clattered to the floor from his other hand at this too, as it instinctively went to hold his other, now bleeding one.

One of his comrades came over to bandage the wound for the time being, and the other humans asked if he wanted them to kill Ashton and Luke. Fielding said no.

Once his hand was quickly bandaged, Fielding picked up his gun from the floor, holding it in his right hand. Ashton had clambered back up off the floor to stand back in front of Luke, smiling smugly to himself.

“Right, okay, I’m fucking done with this whole encounter.” Fielding was clearly at his breaking point now. “You can have some fucking conditions then, since I’m feeling a little generous now, even though you just put a bullet through my hand and destroyed my precious remote.”

Conditions? What sort of conditions did Fielding really thing would sway Ashton?

“Ashton, if you give in Robot Boy now with no fight, I’ll make sure you go to jail and possibly get that shortened for you, just because I’m a great guy. So, hand over the robot.”

His offer frankly disgusted Ashton. His rage had calmed down a little bit in being so active, but God, was he mad at that.

“Look here, how about go fuck yourself. I’m not accepting any bullshit deal like that. I don’t care what happens to me, but you’re not taking Luke. You’re not going to touch Luke. I will protect him! Nobody is fucking getting through me to him.”

Fielding raised an eyebrow at Ashton, who was now panting slightly, feeling the fight practically flow out of him. His words were engrained in his mind. He wasn’t letting them get to Luke. He was going to _save_ Luke.

“Great, Ashton. Well, you see… I. Don’t. Care.”

With those words, Fielding moved his gun, firing a bullet straight into the left side of Ashton’s chest.

_I’m sorry, sweetheart._

**Author's Note:**

> Soz...
> 
> Comments and kudos are welcomed, or feel free to send me an [ask](http://www.ghouluke.tumblr.com) on my tumblr ghouluke. A rebloggable post with the fic art can be found [here](http://ghouluke.tumblr.com/post/152529103111/incinerate-lashton-fic-after-his-parents-create).
> 
> Until next time (I hope)!


End file.
